Pretty much every member of my extended family have made their way to Wimbledon this week to catch a bit of what is one of the highlights of the quintessentially British summer sporting calendar. I’m yet to get shown the offer to go along with but with the Equity markets right now we’ve got a fairly even Tennis match on our hands unfolding right in front of our eyes. Bulls and bears, back and forth for what feels like an enormous rally over the past 5 months but it was the bulls with a powerful…

In a sign of the sad state of affairs in European Equities, the EuroStoxx 50 only needed to close up 102bps to be the best up day in 6 weeks. It didn’t manage it though it did tease us for a while with the Euro Stoxx 50 and Stoxx 600 closing +70bps on the day but to think the largest 50 stocks in Europe haven’t managed to combine for a >1% up day in 6 weeks is slightly depressing. Let’s forgive the market a little, it is the middle of summer, school holidays, peak summer sport season and Q2 ear…

I missed the lively start to the quarter/half but I was at least slightly hopeful that the tape would resemble the eventful scenes at The Palio di Sienna more than the tranquillity of the Uffizi but I was wrong. Obviously I’ve had to put in the only two cultural things I actually did on holiday in the first sentence because most of the holiday was spent drinking wine by the pool and watching the Ashes! Not too many things to blame for the lack of action today but it falls into the ‘Monday in Ju…

Sometimes I wish I could wind back the clock and be a year younger, I’m only 31, look 47 and act 25 but it would be nice to go back a year and have that spring in my step. For an entire nation that is the reality today. South Korea’s traditional age-counting custom considers every person 1 year old at birth and adds another year when the calendar hits Jan 1st. A child born on Dec 31st would actually be 2 years old just 2 days into their life which really doesn’t seem that fair and so they have…

Behind Politicians, who don’t do themselves any favours, Central Bankers can’t be far behind given some of things that they have said in the past year. Yes it’s the first time in 10 years that they have been relevant and maybe enjoying this moment in the sun but seeing back-to-back headlines from ECB’s Vujcic saying “No reason to say now what we do in September” followed swiftly by – “ECB’s Vujcic: There’s a good chance of September rate hike” certainly doesn’t help. All the major Central Banke…

I was tempted to take a leaf out the Fed’s book today and ‘skip’ the Snapshot today but, having been on calls with Melissa the message is definitely that the decision was unwise for the Fed to do so, I’ve taken that advice to be inclusive of the Snapshot. Europe just isn’t that exciting vs the rest of the market right now which is at least showing a few hints of life, movement, positional shifts, sentiment changes. We tend to close flat or very close to (last 6 sessions have been within 60bps o…

I promised readers an interesting week with month and quarter-end likely to be quite pivotal for how we start Q3 and what it spells for the rest of the year but 20% into the week and we’re none the wiser. It was a typical Monday (which isn’t a good thing!) with the Stoxx 600 flirting between gains and losses and closing broadly flat on volumes that offered hope early on but ended up disappointing once again. It did allow me to spend some time booking transfers, researching ‘best SPF 50 suncream…

Oh there was a lot going on today wasn’t there! So much so that I’ve not been able to start early only just managed to get my head around it all. A drifting equity complex was the backdrop for what was largely a macro day but it is worth saying that all the goings on didn’t really change what continues to be a bad week for Equities and the Stoxx 600 -50bps. Firstly to central banks and step up to the plate first Norges Bank who surprised to the upside with a 50bp raise of their interest rate wh…

I don’t know about you but I need the Pentagon Accountant to have a look at my finances. They announced yesterday that they overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion(!?!). How this is possible I do not know but the extra coffers will be used for future security packages I read so that is good news. Another day in European Equities that offered little to get really excited about with the Stoxx 600 happier to continue to drift from recent highs and closed -50bp…

Given I spent 9 hours at Edgbaston yesterday I was feeling surprisingly sprightly this morning. I’m not sure it had anything to do with the thought of coming into the office and keeping an eye on the relentlessly unexciting European Equity complex at this point in time so I’ll put it down to plenty of water and possibly finally learning some lessons about drinking in the sun. I didn’t miss much yesterday by the looks of things and today continued in similar drifty fashion after Chinese bank cut…