Markets just seem to be holding onto their own this morning having formed a low yesterday and the odd bulls seems to be re-emerging from the shed to see if they can’t pick up a few bargains. The only problem is that with the LSE being down this morning few investors can actually trade so they have to use other exchanges like Chi-X and BATS. It’s no wonder that the LSE is losing market share and this is not good PR for the firm which is in the papers not only for its merger with TMX but also today for the launch of its new pan-European trading platform. The industry is consolidating as competition between exchanges becomes fierce and glitches like this do not do our flagship exchange any favours. The hope is that any mergers will swiftly address such technical problems. But don’t hold your breath!
Anyway, the focus for this morning and today is GDP numbers. The UK’s second release for Q4 has just come in at -0.6%, so a revision downwards, just when everyone was hoping that the first release of -0.5% might be revised upwards, this shows that the UK economy is going to have to hard very hard in Q1 of this year in order to avoid a double dip. This will further cause problems for the MPC who are turning more and more hawkish so for the UK economy’s sake people are hoping the doves will remain in the ascendency in the months ahead.
Earlier this morning we had UK consumer confidence data out which improved only mildly but from an exceptionally low base. Consumers remain down beat after January showed the worst reading of the data on record and it’s at least some relief that the number wasn’t any worse with this week’s turmoil and spike in oil prices.
Later the US releases their second snapshot of GDP which is expected to show a little uptick to 3.3% from 3.2%. Then we end the week with US Michigan confidence which is also expected to show a little improvement which would compliment the good consumer confidence numbers on Tuesday.
So the FTSE 100 (UKX) looks like it wants to go into the week end on a positive note. This is a brave move considering the continuation of uncertainty across North Africa and the Middle East. Lloyds …
