Risers Aberdeen Asset Management, +1.99% Topping the list of risers within the FTSE 100, shares in Aberdeen Asset Management have soared after the firm revealed that underlying pre-tax profit for the year to 30 September 2013 is now expected to be towards the upper end of market forecasts. This comes despite assets under management dipping…
By Darren Sinden Yesterday afternoon, I was asked for my thoughts on the direction of US equities. This gave me pause for thought, as we headed into the weekend. For much of this year, I have wanted be bearish on the S&P500, as I felt that things had run too far, too fast. However, my…
By Filipe R. Costa & R Jennings, Titan Investment Partners It is interesting to note how fast some analysts from major banks and investment houses change their opinions regarding the assets they supposedly research. Of course, others, usually the brokerage house of a particular stock, commonly known as “the shop” stick doggedly to their view,…
By Investment Contrarians To put it mildly, natural gas simply doesn’t get as much attention as crude oil, or even gold. Mr. Speculator, my good old friend, once said, “Why would you want to even bother looking at it? The prices have collapsed and have been ranging for years.” It’s certainly true that natural gas…
European stock markets are seen opening slightly lower to unchanged as investors focus on developments in Germany following the re-election of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Despite Merkel winning her third term at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy, the votes came in slightly short of an overall victory. It will now be up to Merkel to…
The chart below displays the ratio of global central bank balance sheets to the price of gold (i.e. how much gold is required to support the balance sheets of the world’s money-printers). As we can see itappears to be reaching an extreme… To quote JP Morgan in their recently released Gold tome – “In other…
The chart above, to us, is extremely telling… With $18tn of debt outstanding (and growing), there is no way that the FED can scale back dramatically the purchasing of bonds in the immediate term and with uber dove Yellen in the frame for the new Fed Chair seat, we know which way we are comfortable…
I think that it will turn out that last week could prove to be a watershed for financial markets. The Fed was always going to have great difficulty in digging itself out of the QE hole that it has managed to lodge itself in. However serious questions also remain about the role of the media…
