Performer And People Have Been

The Week Ahead ■The Bank of England's next move ■Is this the beginning of the end for the Eurozone? ■Fed officials reluctant to signal more easing ■Broader risk environment outweighs Japanese rhetoric The Bank of England's next move The BOE kept rates on hold when it concluded its May meeting last week; it also allowed the asset purchase program to come to an end. Since the UK slipped back into recession in Q1 2012 and the growth figures at the start of the second quarter have continued to look weak, the decision to hold interest rates was mostly down to the sticky outlook for inflation. The attention now turns to Wednesday's Inflation Report. The focus will be on the Bank's growth and inflation forecasts. The growth forecasts are likely to be revised lower. Even ...

(Reuters) - Wall Street ended its worst week this year with a sharp selloff on Friday after a slowdown in job creation in the world's top economy raised the biggest question mark yet about the prospects for U.S. growth. Employers reduced hiring for the third straight month, adding 115,000 workers in April, well below forecasts of 170,000. Traders' expectations had fallen during the week, but the softer jobs number missed even more pessimistic forecasts. Energy shares were the worst performers, with the S&P energy index .GSPE down 2.2 percent on fears a worsening economy would sap demand. U.S. crude oil fell 4 percent, dropping below $100 a barrel for the first time since February. The sharp retreat this week was a blow to investors who had been hoping the S&P 500 would break out ...

Sunrise Market Commentary Fixed Income: core bonds remain near contract highs Global core bonds reversed Tuesday's losses in a rather uneventful session. Today, all attention will go to the Spanish bond auction. A weak auction two weeks ago put pressure on Spanish yields since. The 10-yr yield flirts with the psychological 6% mark. In order to avoid more tensions, failure today is not an option. Currencies Sterling leaps higher on less dovish BoE Minutes While EUR/USD trading was rather uneventful, sterling was the star performer. Helped by less dovish BoE Minutes and a stronger labour market report, sterling shot higher pushing EUR/GBP below key support and GBP/USD above 1.60. The Sunrise Headlines US Equities dropped slightly lower on Wednesday, giving back part of ...

(Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Friday and growth-linked currencies such as the Australian dollar were shunned after data showing shrinking factory activity in China and the euro zone heightened concerns about a slowdown in the global economy. Materials stocks such as miner BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) were prominent among the losers, but crude oil steadied after tumbling overnight and copper bounced off a 2-week low. Data on Thursday showed China's manufacturing sector activity shrank in March for a fifth successive month, while German and French manufacturing suffered a sharp decline that even the most pessimistic economists failed to predict. "Fears of a Chinese hard landing are on the rise; overdone we think," said Vincent Chaigneau, strategist at Societe Generale. "Concerns over Europe ...

FUNDAMENTAL OUTLOOK at 0800 GMT (EDT +0400) WORLD Broad USD strength amid the post-FOMC rise in US Tresury yields remains the dominant theme. While USDJPY broke above 84 in the Asia session, EURUSD is threatening to slip through 1.30. Although Japanese bonds were under pressure, USDJPY was driven by the widening 2y UST-JGB yield spread on expectations of a Fed-BoJ policy divergence. USDJPY still has upside risk, with the Fed backing away from more QE and BoJ boasting plenty of room to expand, amend, and extend its Asset Purchase Programme (APP) as early as next month – perhaps in conjunction with the release of its Outlook Report on April 27. Repatriation flows are not yet prominent in the run-up to the March 31 book closing in Japan. MoF data released earlier today confirmed that ...

(Reuters) - Gold prices rose on Friday as optimism that Greece may soon secure an urgently needed bailout buoyed financial markets and helped bullion recover from a one-week low hit in the previous session. Gold, on course for a weekly rise of 0.8 percent, has moved in the range between $1,700 and $1,760 since the beginning of the month, closely tracking the progress and setbacks in Greece's struggle to obtain a 130-billion euro bailout. Hopes that Greece has finally done enough to secure a second bailout after Athens set out extra budget savings demanded by its international lenders helped riskier assets rally in the last trading day of the week. Technical signals may have turned upbeat for gold, said Nick Trevethan, senior commodity strategist at ANZ in Singapore. "We're at the point ...

Gold prices were on course for their biggest monthly rise since August on Tuesday, boosted by economic unease in Europe and the United States and raising the possibility of a climb toward last year's record high of just over $1,900 per ounce. Sentiment for gold at the end of January compares starkly with late December, when prices dropped by more than 10 percent in their biggest monthly fall since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in an investor dash for cash. A $400 price drop from last September's record $1,920.30 had left investors questioning whether gold had ended an 11-year rally. Gold was up 0.8 percent at $1,742.59 an ounce by 1523 GMT, having earlier touched $1,747.39 - its highest since mid-December and up some 11 percent on the month to date. Currency fundamentals turned ...

Fundamental Analysis EUR "The biggest challenge is to respond to the crisis in an adequate manner" - Christine Lagarde, the IMF Managing Director The International Monetary Fund is aiming to increase its lending capacity by 500 billion dollars to protect economies from the escalating euro zone debt crisis. GBP "Unemployment could become one of the main economic and political issues this year" - Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank AG The number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose by 1.2 thousand to 1.6 million in December and the unemployment rate increased to 8.4 per cent, the highest rate in 16 years, said the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday. USD "Builders are seeing greater interest among potential buyers as employment and consumer confidence slowly ...

Fundamental Analysis EUR "In this sort of environment it does not take much to knock the euro, it is in an extremely vulnerable position" - Rabobank (based on Reuters) The outlook for EUR/USD will remain negative as long as a cluster of resistances at 1.2913/20 (downtrend and 20 day ma) stays in place. Currently the pair is moving toward 1.2530/88, while a long-term target is 1.2083 (200 month ma). USD "The Greek situation is quite dire. If they don’t reach some sort of agreement by the end of next week, they may very likely be forced in to a hard default" - Forex.com (based on Bloomberg) EUR/JPY has declined down to new 11-year lows. While being capped by a formidable resistance located at 98.75/80 the bias will be bearish for the pair, which in turn is expected to fall to 94.90, ...