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

Defiance Yesterday’s market was defying one of two things: logic or gravity. Come to think of it, perhaps both. Take cable, GBPUSD, yesterday. The key events beyond minor data releases centred around any chatter from either side of the Iranian conflict and Starmer singing for his supper. Sing he did and tweet the President did, […]
Short-lived relief rally A tantrum in the bond market has continued to erode away at risk conditions in recent sessions. In the UK, the sell-off in gilts and corporate bonds has been particularly acute thanks to heightened political instability, the origins of which we have covered thoroughly in recent briefings. Yesterday, headlines delivered enough optimism […]
One-trick market Yesterday saw significant volatility once again driven by, you guessed it, turbulent news flow surrounding the US-Iran conflict. The biggest move came just shortly after 13:15 BST when markets placed their convictions behind an unlikely source. It was reported by Al Hadath, a Saudi state-owned news channel, that work was ‘underway… to put the […]