The UK Economy

Barclays have announced a 35% fall in first quarter profits. Citing the cost of transforming the bank to become a “Go-To” bank profits fell by £609m to £1.8bn. An increase in European losses was a further contributing factor to the first quarter losses. In a statement the bank’s chief executive, Antony Jenkins, said  “We set […]

Is it just me or is HSBC (LSE:HSBA) more adept at shooting itself in the foot than most other banks?  Or have they simply understood something that the rest of us have only guessed at? That “little people” are irrelevant. In a span of less than 24 hours, the bank has announced 3,166 workers, i.e., […]

In the session on Monday, the GBPUSD had a slightly bullish day, recovering from the losses that had last Friday, when was published the new Moody’s credit rating for the UK economy. Possibly, the GBPUSD is forming a higher low pattern in this chart but keep in mind that the GBPUSD is not out of […]

Another down week for the UK flagship index  with a revisit to near April lows of 6215 and hand-rubbing by bargain hunters looking for a rebound. Declines driven by more intense fears over global growth (emerging + developed), with weaker Chinese weekend growth data (as suggested last week) seeing the prior Friday’s sell-off in risk […]

Yesterday the Bank of England released the minutes from the early April meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee Meeting.  Although the report indicated that the committee generally sees value in its Funding for Lending Scheme, it didn’t seem too anxious to expand it in the near future. The problem facing the committee is that, so […]

Yesterday’s session was very bearish for the GBPUSD, due to “bad” economic data that were released early and that demonstrate, that the UK economy is not good, for now. The GBPUSD is now trying to make a breakout of support at 1.5225 level, if the cable does that breakout, could fall to next support at […]

If you want to know which way gold is going to move the best thing to do is watch it every day on ADVFN and you should build up a feel for its real value. Gold should be a small part of your investment portfolio and nothing beats keeping tabs on your investments and the […]

Yesterday’s session was very bullish in the last hours for the cable. Now, the GBPUSD is facing a strong resistance on the upside. The GBPUSD is forming a lower high clear pattern in the H1 chart. The resistance in the 1.5377 level is very strong, because it has been touched days ago but could not […]

Earlier today, the International Monetary Fund released its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, subtitled “Hopes, Realities, Risks.” From a 30,000 foot view, the IMF thinks that the world economy is beginning to recovery from a slow 2012 although risks to the economy are still being considered high “in the medium term.”  The report cited two major […]

Southern North Sea oil stake bought from BP SSE  has completed the acquisition from BP of a 50% working interest in the Sean gas field in the Southern North Sea. SSE has paid a total cash consideration of £117.4 million, which reflects the value of the asset based on an effective economic date of 1 […]