A trip to London Zoo on Saturday for the Morrison household. My first time there and I have to say I was mightily impressed. Avoid the queues, sort the food and plan the route – responsibilities I felt up to. The big names always the focus and we managed to see the lions, tigers and gorillas (with their new baby!). But my daughter was more drawn to the little goats that you could get up close to and pet. Echoes of the market in there as the focus for many remains on the big names with Nvidia re…

We’re fully transatlantic and whilst there was a lot of interesting snippets from a vast number of corporates in Europe this morning, possibly the most interesting snippet came from Walmart (+6%). The excellent Daniella (Buy rated) flagging that on the call they said “consumer conditions have been relatively consistent through the year so far” and further noted this to be the case across income groups, including at the low end. All eyes currently firmly focussed on the consumer and their behavi…

Slightly hurts me to say that the only real buzz around these markets right now seems to be about Meme stocks that are seemingly doubling on a daily basis. I think that shows just how little interest there is right now in the bigger themes as we await important data tomorrow yet are very close to the recent highs. The Stoxx 600 closed the day up small but relatively flat once again and minus some funnies around the PPI traded once again within a tight range which has been 40bps now on the week…

Sell in May and go away? Well at or near all-time highs it feels a bit like just go away as the one thing consistently missing for the last few sessions is volumes. Terrible in the U.S. towards the end of last week with various stats indicating things dying a death and Friday was the lowest volume day YTD and sadly today doesn’t look any better. Things no better here in Europe with a lack of any notable weekend news and with some important data on the horizon today was broadly one to forget as…

Is June now in play for both the UK and the ECB was the question raised today as the Bank Of England kept rates on hold but said a June rate cut was not ruled out though also wasn’t planned. There were two voters for a cut (we had predicted one) and based on current market interest rate expectations (4.79% by Q4 2024) the MPC forecasts CPI inflation will be below 2% in two years’ time (1.9%). This suggests two 25bp rate cuts are likely this year (and we still see August and November) but the qu…

Everyone feels better when the sun is shining and Equities are making new highs….right? Or maybe that was just me after a cheeky long weekend in Cornwall which was amazing but quite why it is so far away and tricky to get too I will never understand. A very summery feeling within the City of London greeting us today – The days are lighter, pubs are busier but importantly corporates are dealing fairly well with high expectations and higher interest rates and we’re still close to or at all-time h…

Giving a little bit away here but in Q2 2016 I was just a young whippersnapper starting out on my sales-trading career, focussed on getting buy and sell the right way around, remembering that Norway shuts an hour early and, I have to admit, I had a bit more hair than I do now. But it was also the last time the European Midcaps (MCXE) outperformed the Euro Stoxx (SXXE) by as much as they have done so far this week. Too early to scream ‘trend change’ given they and the Smalls (SCXE) have underper…

A weird start to a fairly weird week which includes market holidays, a Fed rate decision, key data across the globe, month end, corporate earnings and as a result a fairly hesitant start. The Stoxx 600 gained a few bps and manage to close the day higher but without much style and fanfare when the day’s range stayed within an incredibly tight 35bps. That could probably end the Snapshot if we were keeping things super snappy but there was maybe a little bit more to mention. In macro German CPI wa…

There was something for everyone today: For the stock picking purists there was 70 odd European companies updating us today on how they’ve coped so far in 2024. The good news is that it is the most we’ll hear from in a single day for the quarter so the load will lighten from here on out. Another frantic morning made even the more interesting by M&A headlines within the mining sector as BHP drew up an approach for Anglo American which, if successful, would be the biggest shake up the industry ha…

A little delay to the Snapshot as days like today are hard to succinctly put into a couple of paragraphs. Lots of noise and a fast start as everyone tries to assess the earnings that rattle through at speed that shows no concern for the people trying to do the assessing. It always settles soon after the open with a bit more calm which is the thing we all have to have in mind especially ahead of a reporting schedules like tomorrow! The marathon of a week is now 60% complete and it feels like we’…