In hindsight, a recent patch of good luck leading up to the week of Cheltenham was probably ill-timed given that it may have led to some overly optimistic decision-making, and in the least surprising news of the day, a few so-called “sure bets” have turned out to be anything but. On the flip side though, attending our Trading the Macro calls is always a guaranteed win and volatile times like these have called for our next instalment to be hosted this Monday, March 17th. European viewers can sig…

Another day and another attempt to stop the recent rot cane and went. Sentiment is poor though and early steadiness was replaced with a familiar feeling from the last few sessions of taking on water. Slightly better JOLTS job openings were enough to see a small lift but Trump almost immediately then started some Tariff noise; 50% on Canada Steel and Aluminium to go into effect….TOMORRROW! That was amongst a flurry of other headlines and there is unsteady feeling about when we in Europe might…

It’s one of the biggest betting weeks of the year for the UK as Cheltenham kicks of tomorrow. Whilst I’ll stay clear of some of the 4-legged chances this week here are some of my odds for the week in markets: A Ukraine/Russia ceasefire (10-1); Trump to table Tariffs on Europe (5-1), More stimulus from China to end their Two-Sessions meeting (6-4). U.S. Headline inflation to come in hotter than expected (Evens)….a volatile week ahead….well that one has already paid out as a winner! The going t…

Given that us Irish aren’t exactly known for our ability to tolerate the sun, I can’t quite tell if the dizziness I felt earlier was from the five minutes spent basking in the 15-degree heat here in London or my brain finally short-circuiting after what’s been a wild week in equity markets…. Today was no different, with a blast of earnings to get through (are we done yet!?) and equities slipping from early highs as euphoria over Trump dialling back tariffs on autos was outweighed by a rather si…

If you’d told me either on Monday or Tuesday that by Wednesday’s close of play we’d be virtually flat on the week for the Stoxx 600 I’d have laughed for different reasons but 3 days into the week that’s where we are….As if it was at Friday’s close and the prevailing 3 days hadn’t happened. Something poetic about all this flipping going on around pancake day (none of mine hit the floor this year) but one thing for certain these are NOT easy markets. Economic growth on investors’ minds today as q…

It is now officially the time of year where you wear a jacket into the office, then its too warm to wear it back home and you end up with all your warm clothes in the office. I don’t know if there is a word for it (there really should be) but I’m definitely running out of room on the back of my chair. Few people might have been hiding behind chairs on a day like today which was the worst of the year in Europe across a wide variety of indices and the Stoxx 600 ended it down -2.1%. It maybe shoul…

What a weekend that was; sun shining, blue skies and even with a crisp feel to proceedings it was a lot better than we’ve been used to so far this year. Naturally, I decided it was a weekend to redecorate and do some housework and ended up spending too much of it indoors! After all, DIY is slightly uncharted territory for me. We’re close to (or in some cases in) uncharted territory here in Europe too. The Stoxx 600 has been up the last 10 weeks and is heading (although early) for its 11th which…

The absence of rain forecasted in London for the next week or so has definitely put me in good spirits and with Saturday marking the first of March, it does feel like we are on the up from here which is hard not to get excited about given that it has felt like winter has dragged on a bit too long for my liking! On the other hand, it was hard for EU bulls to be too upbeat ahead of today’s session, with appetite for risk relatively subdued from the get-go after results overnight from Nvidia came…

“Get married or your labour contract will be terminated” is a pretty no-nonsense approach from a Chinese corporate in an effort to abide with government pushes to tackle declining birth rates and something which did catch me off guard earlier. Certainly not your typical HR policy and I’m not entirely sure how well that would fly here in the UK! Moving on to a different type of pressure, all eyes will be results from Nvidia (currently +4% with options pricing in a 10% move) later tonight which f…

A Tuesday night kick-about has become a bit of a ritual for some of us here and something I very much look forward to once a week, so you’ll forgive me for breezing through today’s session to make the most of the extra sliver of daylight which we’ve been blessed with as of late. A tricky start earlier saw equities on the backfoot, with haven assets bid for following the latest tariff rhetoric out of Washington which included news that the Trump administration is looking to toughen semiconductor…