Trading Update
03-Feb-14, 9:26am:

US Dollar Strength Controlling Most FX Markets



The Dow is looking weak and approaching a potential death cross. It’s not a happy story for FTSE or Nikkei buyers either.

However, in the forex markets it’s all about the dollar.

EURUSD is selling off on rumours that, on Thursday, we will see a Eurozone interest rate cut.

Cable is also under a lot of pressure as investors buy the dollar.



Update by Craig Inglis, Head of Product Development,
03-Feb-14, 10:10am:

Global Stocks Have Started February on the Back Foot



Stock markets are still rather soft and the latest Chinese data is rather unfortunate for buyers.

Below we have a quick update on how the markets are currently looking.



Update by Ishaq Siddiqi, Market Analyst,
03-Feb-14, 12:28pm:

Hedge Funds Still Buying into Gold



The US offered up their latest gold Commitment of Traders (COT) report on Friday and it makes interesting reading for precious metals traders.

In the table below we can see the latest positions by the hedge-funds (Non-Commercial commitments) up to 28 Jan 2014

It looks like the big speculators are still roughly 7:1 long of platinum and nearly 5:1 long of palladium.

Gold Could Get More Interesting Though



If we look at a COT chart for how these Non-Commercial traders have been changing their position on gold, we can see that they have been increasing their net long position since 3 Dec 2013.

The correlations aren’t perfect but if you’re speculating on gold it’s good to know that the big boys seem to be keen and have increased their positions for each of the last 8 weeks.

(and just to be clear, I have a small long position on gold).

Note, these views are my own and not a recommendation to trade. If you are trading, only trade with money you can afford to lose. Good luck!

Update by Jenna Cutly, Editor,
03-Feb-14, 12:31pm:

Hedge Funds Stay Long of Crude Oil



The US Gov released their latest crude oil Commitment of Traders report on Friday evening.

For energies investors, it’s interesting to see that the ‘Commitments by Non-Commercial Traders’, i.e. positions by hedge-funds to you and me, are still nearly 4:1 long of crude oil.

That means there is a lot of upwards pressure on the price of crude oil from these traders.

Perhaps they don’t think Iran will be supplying large quantities of crude oil any time soon.

Update by Jenna Cutly, Editor,
03-Feb-14, 2:03pm:

Chevron Stock Slips



The CVX stock closed down -4.14% to $111.63bn on Friday after the petroleum giant reported Q4 earnings of $4.9bn or $2.57 per ‘diluted share’.

The numbers compared poorly with $7.2bn, or $3.70 per diluted share, in Q4 2012.

Update by Jacob Wood, Editor,
03-Feb-14, 2:03pm:

Investors Sell Amazon



The AMZN stock was caught in a fire-sale on Friday as it dropped -11% to $358.69.

The Q4 earnings report didn’t contain the blockbuster numbers that investors had hoped for.

Q4 EPS was $0.51 vs $0.21 a year ago ($0.69 expected). Revenues were up 20% YoY to $25.59bn vs $26.08bn expected.

Looking ahead, the company’s statement read, “Net sales are expected to be between $18.2bn and $19.9bn, or to grow between 13% and 24% compared with Q1 2013.

“Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(200m) and $200m, compared to $181m in Q1 2013.”

Update by Jacob Wood, Editor,
03-Feb-14, 2:03pm:

Investors Find the Latest Google Earnings Report to Their Liking



GOOG shares closed up +4.01% to $1180.97 on Friday after the web firm reported 4Q EPS of $9.90 vs $9.02 a year ago. The results were based on consolidated revenue of $16.86bn vs $14.42bn a year ago.

The adjusted EPS was $12.01 vs $10.65 a year earlier.

Google’s core web business grew by 22% YoY to post revenues of $15.72bn for the quarter.

Aggregate paid clicks were up 31% YoY and 13% QoQ.

Average CPC fell 11% YoY and 2% QoQ.

Motorola Sold



The search firm also announced that ‘Motorola Mobile segment’ revenues were $1.24bn, or 7% of consolidated revenues in 4Q, vs $1.51bn, or 11% of consolidated revenues last year.

Having said that, earlier in the week the company announced that it was selling Motorola to Lenovo for $3bn.

Naturally Google will be keeping the vast majority of patents it acquired when it originally bought Motorola.

Update by Jacob Wood, Editor,