Dan Atkinson

The latest round of talks between Britain and the European Union over a future trading relationship kicks off tomorrow with both sides, in effect, urging the other to “get real”. Reports suggest both sides are deadlocked on key issues, although informed sources suggested there could be “wriggle room” allowing London and Brussels to reach a […]

Tentative signs of an oil-price recovery were in evidence today. Both Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are off their lows of a month ago and the trend seems to be upwards. Brent, changing hands at $19.99 a barrel a month ago, on 27 April, not only found support at $20 but is now trading at $32.50. […]

Europe’s single currency, the euro, is 21 years old, but whether one is celebrating or not rather depends on which of its member-countries one lives in. For Germany, the euro has been a boon, helping the country’s mighty export machine to pile up huge trade surpluses. The same is true to a lesser extent for […]

The extraordinary 12-month gold-price bull run shows no sign of ending. Despite predictions of a bubble set to burst, the yellow metal has risen by 36% during the past 12 months. There was a slight slip this morning as the price lost 1.23% in early trading to stand at $1,735.25 an ounce. But the pattern of recent […]

If ever there were a time to watch closely the Volatility index (VIX), the last few months have been it. The VIX is colloquially known as the “fear index”, and fear is one thing that has not been in short supply. As the spectre of the coronavirus stalked financial markets, there seemed moments when even the […]

Sterling and London shares seemed full of the joys of spring this morning, shrugging off talk of a likely failure in the negotiations over Britain’s future trading relationship with the European Union. Then pound gained 0.22% against the euro to trade at €1.1212, and the blue-chip FTSE 100 index rose 2.5% to 5,944.73. Against the dollar, sterling was 0.15% higher […]

For decades, it was one of the most politically and diplomatically fraught exchange rates, the frontier between two of the largest economies in the world. Today, the yen/dollar relationship generates less heat than before, not least because Japan’s apparently-unstoppable economic progress looks less formidable than was the case in the late Eighties. Back then, the authorities in […]

Even by the extraordinary standards of the first few months of this year, Italy’s benchmark stock index has taken a terrible pounding. The FTSE MIB, representing the 40 most liquid and highly capitalised shares on the Milan exchange, saw out the old year at about 23,700. This morning, it traded at 17,380.10. That’s a destruction of […]