IDS World Markets Mon 11th August 03

[Guest]

Yep another up day, what a surprise... All Ords currently +0.2%. Hard to see what's driving the index as my screen on the red side. Even the banks not terribly enthusiastic so can't really blame them. Golds are stalling a tad, flat to marginal green with the exception of Newmont +3%.

 

Asia up so far....

[Guest]

The bulls partied on for a while then the Reserve Bank (the bears' friend) spoke:

 

http://au.news.yahoo.com/030811/2/l7wt.html

 

"The pace of growth in Australia's non-farm economy is likely to ease during the remainder of 2003, the Reserve Bank of Australia says.

 

The growth of domestic demand is now in the process of slowing from its recent rapid pace, and in the short term is unlikely to be offset by stronger external conditions," the RBA said in its Monetary Policy statement."

 

Obviously this is NOT what the punters expected to hear and All Ords went into a steep decline to close +0.8, flat in other words. Most the golds finished up but the action wasn't exciting.

 

Nikkei went parabolic for the day closing +1.75%. Looking at a longer term chart it could be just fronting up for a retest of resistance.

[alceringa]

Yoo-hoo world markets

 

Uncle Buck

 

 

Spoo-Hoo's-

 

Nasty-

 

 

Globex Flash Quotes Link

 

 

euroland

 

Jo-burg Miners Here

 

After Hours-USA

 

Island

 

AM Market Call By CNNMoney

 

From Bloomberg 0300 Stool HQ Time

Merrill Lynch Ex-Chief Energy Trader Gordon Probed Over $43 Million Theft

Daniel Gordon, former chief energy trader for Merrill Lynch & Co., is being investigated for embezzling $43 million from the world's largest securities firm in 2000 by disguising the theft as an energy trade, according to a letter written by a U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and interviews with Canadian law-enforcement officials.

 

Japan's Nikkei Has Biggest Gain in Two Weeks; Hong Kong's HSBC Advances

 

Euro Falls on Concern Europe's Economic Growth to Lag That of Japan, U.S.Bloomberg

[Bird D Durr]

JAM-A-MANIA WEEK...................................

 

Don't Trade It...........................

 

Manipulation at its best...................

[The brown one]

Moanin' from A'dam.

 

Well, the monthly homonals are here again---it's scam week.

As usual,it looks like we're going nowhere again.Looks like they have to hold the 310 level on the AEX at all costs--until they can't!

I think that they are giving themselves some leeway should something unforeseen happen--an options expiry above 320 or much below 300 would be painful for some large parties .

 

On a somewhat different topic,I looked at Schaeffer's p/c ratio for ASML(chip equipment maker based in the Netherlands).

For the duration of the tech rally it's p/c ratio was very high(90%+) .Until the Naz started to decline,that is.

In one or two days it dropped to 40%.Seriously bearish and it

would seem to me that the "players" in this market write puts when they expect a rally(in fact it's almost selt-reinforcing) and

when the rally is over they buy back the puts for a much lower price.And maybe they then write calls which would also cause the ratio to drop violently.I'll watch this more closely in future.

 

Another little snippet of local info---the refi boom in the Netherlands is also coming to an end,but it will have little effect on the economy--according to a weekend paper.

Wanna know why? Well, the bank charges you so much commission in penalty clauses for changing your mortgage that the majority of refi's here are only saving the mortgagee

money after 3 years!Simply incredible.No wonders the bonkers

here have done well--up about 70% from the March lows.

 

Don't know whether we're in an uptrend or not!!Seems undecicided for the mo.