This has been a busy week for UK politics and things are about to go up a notch. And I am not talking about some arcane legistlative motions that have no impact on financial markets. This is about as real as it gets for business, stocks and the UK Index . Theresa May’s famous Meaningful…
They say that insiders/directors understand a company’s prospects best, that their share purchases/disposals can offer signals to the market when a share price is deemed under- or over-valued. Yesterday was a case in point. Thomas Cook Chairman Frank Meysman made a whopping 50% return in less than 24 hours after buying 373K shares Tuesday for £80K,…
Although the UK Index looks to close out the week +40pts, we are trading around the floor of a week-long 6975-7075 range. Why? Traders are factoring in the risk of little-to-no progress on the trade war resolution front, despite President Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi organising a tete-a-tete at the G20 in Argentina. Banks…
Building on what my colleague wrote yesterday about Tuesday’s upcoming UK Index review (a.k.a the Quarterly Reshuffle), I thought I’d look at all the shares in contention for a move up or down on Christmas Eve. This includes changes between the UK 100 blue-chip index (think Premier League of football) and the mid-caps (think Championship). It…
The worst performing UK Index sector in the final trading session of November are the Housebuilders (-3.6% in aggregate). This in spite of Nationwide House Price data showing UK home prices +1.9% YoY in November, beating expectations of +1.7%. What’s driving the Construction sector decline and are there any nuggets of gold in the muck?…
Deck the halls with risers and fallers. ‘Tis the season for the quarterly UK Index review and everything points to Royal Mail ending up on Old Nick’s naughty list. Next Tuesday is the cut-off date for determining who’s too small (by market capitalisation) to stay in the UK 100 (“blue-chips”), and who’s big enough on the…