Monday 5 December 2011

Santa Rally week thanks to UK PMI

Here we go, UK PMI for the service sector was 52.1 for the November, up from 50.1 last time and way above consensus. Now normally I am not too over-excited by the monthly numbers as they are quite often wrong and only best for giving trends. However, with manufacturing shrinking and doom and gloom everywhere this is some good news.

And more importantly, if you are a fund manager sitting in Europe you are sat on some hefty losses for the year. You need to beat the benchmark, even if that benchmark is -10%. This is hard to do in a falling market so in December we always see Santa Rally's ( and there they go in the picture, the fund managers' off to work in the City at 6.45 this morning)

Better news to is that Merkel and Sarkozy are going to talk all week long, who knows whether this is going to achieve anything, but a whole week of talking will have traders thinking a solution is going to be arrived at.

This week, events aside, is going to be quite a decent rally in the markets as they get in the Christmas Spirit.

6 comments:

Budgie said...

Santa rally? I need twenty Santa rallies!

CityUnslicker said...

from small beginnings. Am off to see CEO of EMED tonight to give him a proper grilling.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Well, from trying to sell/buy judiciuously on highs and lows, I am only(!) 8% down on the year.... so a couple of incredible weeks up to Christmas would be most welcome. Then I'll offload as quick as I can and get back in cash as this euro omni-shambles isn't going to end nicely.

Steven_L said...

I'm long:

2 parts Chevron (bought 25th Nov)
1 part AT&T (26th Nov)
1 part Wells Fargo (26th Nov)
1 part Microsoft (26th Nov)

Was 30% down before the rally started and back to break even now, so let's hope stocks can put another 10% on before 2012 is in!

CityUnslicker said...

You guys are doing better than me, still 45% down. Went all in far too early this year. Next should be better though.

Bill Quango MP said...

Remind you all its cyberday today. A made up day whereby the media judge warble on about the internet and comparison websites.

Whatever they say the online peak is this week for the very good reason that its 3 weeks delivery and the first weekday after payday. If you want to post overseas you must do it by friday ot its too late. So the rush starts today.

Something i haven't heard on the media yet is that although online costs are far lower than high street, profits are far lower too.

And often they don't mention the hidden costs when gabbing about 'savings'

My £900 TV from the local shop was £300 less in comet.
It came with a 5 year guarantee {£140 extra} the cables {£40 extra} and free delivery and installation {£95 extra}

So for a real extra £25 I got it locally. And they took the old 30 kilo
plasma away. -30 kilo, I kid you not!
What the hell were Fujitsu thinking in 1995 making a flat TV that was heavier than a washing machine?

BQ Industries looking at about 6% down today on fairly poor 2010 figures, which is a result we are quite pleased with, considering how tough it is.
{That doesn't include internet sales which are way up but we have 10 times the lines online that we had last year.}