April hasn’t had a 1% move for the Stoxx 600 and today wasn’t going to trouble the scorers in that regard as we closed flat once again. Not the busiest start to a quarter especially given at this time of year how used to dealing with negative curveballs we have gotten. So 12, fairly mundane sessions and though it must be said we’ve gained +2.8% in that time. We had been flagging that seasonally April is basically the best month of the year on average and least, whilst they haven’t been big move…

Artificial Intelligence (or AI to the cool kids) is absolutely everywhere and I must admit despite my ‘Millennial’ tag I have no idea how it all works. I’m not even close to understanding it, despite some great work by the Redburn analysts but what I do know is it is taking over. As you can imagine I was slightly horrified when our excellent UMG analyst Agnieszka pointed me towards a song created by AI which appears to sound exactly like Drake and I just can’t fathom how it is possible. It is…

A weekend doing absolutely nothing was just what the doctor ordered having been taken down by a cold for the previous two weeks but the time resting feels well timed with Q1 earnings season ready to kick off. Always a manic feel to things and we’ll get the first day sense of that probably on Thursday (17co’s reporting), and a weird, strange part of me is actually quite excited. Looking ahead then as today didn’t offer up much excitement with the Stoxx 600 spending the majority of the day within…

If yesterday provided the first signs of a few small fireworks in the markets for some time, today was a damp wick, unable to get excited about anything and broadly speaking the market feels quite comfortable for the Easter interrupted weeks to be over and all things going on to be a matter of next week’s business. The streets of London still thriving on a Thursday lunch time in the sun which is nice to see but that seemed to be where the action was focussed with volumes dire once again. Yes th…

I had a quick trip to my Knee Surgeon today, one of those things that could really be done on the phone but they chose not to despite me getting the sense he is fed up with seeing me these days. Amazing what modern medicine can do – we looked at scans of my knee having been injected with Nuclear material (all quite strange) which then heads to the part of the bone most affected. Results were not great but maybe not as bad as it could have been. And that was a similar story to the CPI, because n…

We’ve started of this shortened week in fairly orderly fashion with the Stoxx 600 closing up 60bps on the day but the themes remain quiet dealing desks, low volumes and holiday mode still engaged for many. I stuffed my face full of Chocolate and Lamb so a four day break was very much needed and it is really just good for the soul isn’t it? The sun is rising earlier in the morning and everyone seemed to have a little bit more skip in their steps and maybe that was enough to cause a halt in the ‘…

I hope everyone’s got some nice plans for the weekend because the quiet week has turned not-so-quiet over the past 24 hours. The only real time of the year where all developed markets in Europe celebrate a bank holiday together and a chance for a (much needed) break for everyone involved. The out of office replies to this week Snapshot’s a gentle reminder that a lot of people have taken this week off and I imagine there will be similar amounts next week. That created quite a messy tape where th…

The market failed to get out of second gear today, and some would argue it was stuck in first as the culmination of a very tough Q1 and a 4 day easter break on the horizon took its toll on enthusiasm, volumes, moves and everything that this Equity market usually gives us in spades. The Stoxx 600 limped to a small loss on the day despite the Euro Stoxx 50, CAC and DAX all hitting intraday 12mo highs though it was hard to read anything into it as the volumes just weren’t there to back it up. I ev…

Quite an emotional weekend in the Morrison household as my daughter turned 1. The advice given to us in the lead up was this is a celebration for you, not her and I took that quite literally. 25 friends and babies were invited into my small flat to celebrate…Put the babies in the ball pit, make sure there are plenty of drinks and you can’t go wrong…can you? Luckily this is a shortened week as I’m definitely too old for Sunday celebrations but its always good to make the most of these moments an…

Dear oh dear that was a tricky day. We didn’t get the sense that desks were overly busy but the Equity markets decided it would move in serious fashion with some pockets faring better than others. With Month and Quarter end tomorrow things sometimes have a knack of looking a bit strange and Easter holidays have already begun for some lucky people so it did feel like there were a few more absentees than normal. Always a good time to reflect and look back on what has been a broadly good quarter f…