Commodities: Gold at $1318, WTI Oil at $59.83, Both up more than 1%
Currencies: GBP weaker following the PM writing to Eurozone applying for an extension yesterday. A rally in GBP only likely if the PM gets her deal through; right now with the PM’s late night speech, a NoDeal is back on the table as being a possibility and GBP reflects that. USD weaker.
Equities: FTSE 7291, Dow 25,745. Both down 0.5%.
I0 year Govt Yields: US 2.53, Germany 0.08, UK 1.16, France 0.46, Italy 2.53, Japan -0.04
Fed Chairman now sees NO rate rises in 2019 and Treasury yields fell to the lowest in the past year.
(But at a cost-see below) In case you missed this statistic: last Saturday was the EIGHTEENTH consecutive Saturday that Les Gilets Jaunes demonstrated in Paris marking this by burning down a restaurant, causing much damage by rioting in the Champs Elysees and not showing much sign of changing their plans for this coming Saturday. All this within a couple of hundred metres of the Elysees Palace, home to Le President himself, Emanuel Macron-surely just a little embarrassed by his ineffectualness to stem the hurt to the capital and its inhabitants? Still at least Eurostar is working….uh oh …..!
The 10 Most expensive Cities in the World
If you are an ex pat living in one of the world’s ten most expensive cities, you probably know how expensive your chosen city is already. Interesting though to see how those cities stack up. Here is the list and of course as with all statistics, when the list says the top 10, there are of course 11!
1= Singapore, Paris, Hong Kong
4= Zurich
5= Geneva, Osaka
7= Seoul, Copenhagen, New York
10= Tel Aviv, Los Angeles
Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

One in three Until recently, the market had held the probability of a rate cut at the Bank of England’s November meeting at near zero. Above-target inflation and insufficient evidence of faltering economic growth alone suggested the BoE would continue to adopt a wait and see approach. Combine that with the uncertainty of the UK […]
A glimmer of (European) hope The ECB has made significant progress in cutting rates towards an accommodative level. The Eurozone saw evidence of cooling inflation much sooner than many economies and has been able to respond accordingly, cutting the deposit rate to 2%. The ECB will meet again this Thursday to publish its latest monetary […]
Two cuts down The Federal Reserve cut the target Fed funds rate by 25-basis points again last night. This brings the benchmark range down to a 3.75-4% banding. This move had been widely expected, but that does not mean it did not have any market impact. As of market open today, the dollar continues to […]