Posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2012 at 8:46 am.
A key theme in the past month has been the converging growth trends we are seeing between the US and the slowing economies of Europe and China. The US economic recovery continues to gather pace with improvements in the labour market being particularly impressive, whilst the eurozone appears to have entered what may be another [...] Read More...
Posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2012 at 8:38 am.
Bernanke unimpressed by US upturn The upturn we have seen in the US economy has peppered the financial headlines over the past few months. The US grew at an annualized pace of 3.0% in the further quarter of 2011, a figure which could well be revised upwards on Thursday. When the first quarter 2012 GDP [...] Read More...
Posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 at 9:25 am.
Bouncing back from last week’s poor UK unemployment figures and Fitch’s downgrade to the UK’s rating outlook, the pound has made an excellent start to the week. Taken against a basket of 13 major currencies, GBP is trading at its strongest level in over a year. However, this morning’s release of the minutes from the [...] Read More...
Posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 at 9:22 am.
The US dollar has recently posted ten and eighteen-day low against both the euro and the pound respectively. This belies the excellent growth data that has been surfacing from the US throughout March. The highlights from last week included some strong US retail sales numbers, a positive US bank stress test result and some further [...] Read More...
Posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 5:14 pm.
NOK/JPY The Norwegian krone has made an extremely impressive start to 2012. It was the top performing currency in February, which is largely due to a combination of domestic economic strength and soaring oil prices. Amid worrying developments in Iran, the price of Brent crude oil is trading at what is more than a three [...] Read More...
Posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 5:08 pm.
EUR/JPY The yen has weakened off by around 11.5% against the euro in the past two months. This is largely attributable to the convergence of performance between the US and Japan economies and monetary easing from the Bank of Japan. The Japanese economy remains a key underperformer among the major global economies; it contracted by [...] Read More...
Posted on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 4:58 pm.
Greek parliament votes on austerity measures to pave way for bailout Greece is unfortunately in a state of utter turmoil; riots, 21% unemployment, recession and political division. However, as far as the markets are concerned the weekend’s events represent a step in the right direction. The Greek parliament passed an austerity package necessary to receive [...] Read More...
Posted on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 3:09 pm.
The euro has enjoyed a remarkably strong start to 2012, rebounding considerably from what was a very steep decline at the end of last year. Greece has been the primary focus of recent weeks – talks stalled between Greece and its private creditors over a debt swap deal and the Greek coalition has struggled to [...] Read More...
Posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 4:40 pm.
Euro recovers from S&P with a major bounce The euro has responded impressively to Standard & Poor’s blanket downgrade of nine eurozone credit ratings (which wouldn’t have been the case had Germany been axed). The market is extremely short of euros and what we are seeing is those short positions being covered, particularly as hopes [...] Read More...
Posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 8:02 am.
Eastern Europe Country Population Capital City – Largest City Belarus 9 800 000 Minsk * Bulgaria 7 800 000 Sofia * Czech Republic 10 200 000 Prague * Hungary 10 100 000 Budapest Moldova 4 200 000 Chisinau * Poland 38 200 000 Warsaw * Romania 21 700 000 Bucharest Russian Federation 144 100 000 Moscow * Slovakia 5 400 000 [...] Read More...