Expert commentary

MIKE LENHOFF 27- Jul -2010 - Second liners confirm the risk trade – but keep your gilts anyway!
For a bear the more recent news flow just doesn’t suit the book. Like last week’s UK GDP figure which came in well ahead of expectations – second quarter growth was almost double the rate expected. Or the eurozone’s latest PMI surveys which confirmed the story coming through in the recovery of industrial output, which is growing faster this year in Germany, for example, than in the US. SANDY JADEJA 27- Jul -2010 - Dow Jones clears resistance level at 10385…
Uncertainty is normal business for any trader. However the recent weeks has seen an increase in uncertainty for bulls and bears as key levels have been breached both on the upside and the downside. JUSTIN URQUHART STEWART 26- Jul -2010 - So who is Frank Dodd?
Forget Frank Dodd, it is in fact Dodd Frank that we should remember. Chris Dodd is the chairman of the US Senate banking committee, and Barney Frank (who should be a cartoon character, surely) is chairman of the House (of Representatives) financial services committee. JUSTIN URQUHART STEWART 19- Jul -2010 - Cocking a CNOOC?
At the time of writing this, the BP gusher appears to have been capped. If true and sustained, then in Churchillian terms this is “Not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning”, because this is just the stopping of the core damage and nowhere near the stopping of the financial damage. It seems almost inevitable that the BP we know today won’t be the same BP this time next year. MIKE LENHOFF 16- Jul -2010 - If the risk trade is back - it’s back with one exception.
Have equity markets been rescued from their second quarter sell-off? Corporate spreads have narrowed after having widened a bit, the dollar has given up a good part of this year’s gain, having yielded to the euro, the yen and sterling, and gold has softened although the underlying trend remains up. On the face of it, the risk trade is back.