Rio Tinto shares are among the UK Index winners this morning despite the mining giant downgrading its expectations for iron ore production in 2017 and highlighting a tough Q1 as growth stalled and shipments fell sharply due to operational challenges including weather and exhausted stockpiles. Nonetheless, the positive share price response today comes from reiterated…
Macro observations Oil prices have fallen in response to a failed OPEC meeting in Doha on Sunday, which is sure to move the currencies of commodity producing nations, in particular the USD, Aussie Dollar, South African Rand, CAD. See also the Japanese Yen for safe haven seeking. US Fed speculation about the timing of future rate…
It wasn’t just US banks that began reporting this week. Keeping with tradition we had US aluminium producer Alcoa kicking off proceedings on Monday, and its results weren’t exactly rosy. It missed an already low-set bar! But did we see a read-across to the UK’s own basic materials sector? Well, not exactly. The UK 100…
With all the major UK banks at one point or other coming within sniffing distance of multi-year lows in 2016, the question remains: is now the time to buy? US banking giants Bank of America and Wells Fargo published modest, yet slightly-better-than-expected trading results this week and this has brought attention back to the UK…
In the week ahead we have a major US aluminium company and a host of US Banks kicking off earning season stateside. The question is, will these quarterly results have a knock-on for UK shares as they done so many times previously. The list of companies reporting include….. Alcoa (AA) is notorious for setting the tone for mining…
As my trading colleague mentioned last week, the fact that the UK 100 Index is trading within a tight range has generated mixed response. On the one hand it is a ‘range-traders’ dream with its repeated bounces around 6100 and fall-backs from 6200. And it’s been a month now. On the other hand it is…