We are entering the quietist week of the month in terms of economic reports. The emphasis will be more on what is said and the actions of governments and the financial sector.

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 It is most likely that the problems in the banking sector may take the top bill for the week. If this settles down then we will be back to normal business. Regardless, we will see a large amount of interest in the US FOMC interest rate decision. It is expected to be left untouched by the majority of forecasters, although a few are calling for a drop.

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 There were some good results out for the UK last week, that said many of the numbers were still showing contraction albeit at a slower rate than expected. There was no surprise as the Bank of England left the rate untouched for another month.

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The key reports last week were based on inflation. In the UK we saw the PPI (the factory inflation) fall slightly, mainly attributable to the reduction in crude and commodity prices.

Consumer inflation was higher than expected in both the UK and US, although both BoE and the Feds are expecting them to go up slightly more now before starting to fall.

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Economy 

We have a number of key reports due out this week, in particular the inflation reports for the US, Europe and the UK. We have already seen the

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As mentioned in the latest copy of the newsletter we have decided to change the way we show the stocks to more accurately reflect how we would trade them.

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We have the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and Bank of England announcing their interest rate decisions this week. This may take the main focus although all are expected to be held. Obviously any variation to this will cause quite a response. With oil prices falling back, there may be some relief within each of the committees. With the BoE being the highest and the poor economic data that we have seen recently, there is an off-chance that we may see a cut.  

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 There was a slight surprise in the Bank of England minutes, as we saw the voting come in at 7 to 2 for the rate to be left unchanged. The surprise was more in the fact that one member had voted for an increase. Personally I think this would be extremely damaging for the UK economy as I have written in last months newsletter.

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We have seen another stock finally getting stopped out as Gold and oil falls back. This leaves just three stocks in the fund at present with others looking slightly vulnerable.

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Inflation came in ahead of expectation for both the UK and US showing the effects of high oil and food prices are really hitting the economies hard. US retail sales came in below expectation which would suggest that the previous high figures were solely related to the tax refunds. In the UK British Retail Consortium’s figure on retail sales suggested that we too saw a blip last month, with indications that this weeks official figure will come in lower.

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