Market Outlook
Our weekly perspective on global markets.
Whitefoord's Market Outlook provides an opportunity for Whitefoord to discuss and highlight, financial events that we think are of interest from the past week which we provide comment.
 |
This week we saw the end of the first month of 2012 and in relative terms it was a good one for equity markets globally. Risk was back on in January. |
|
The US Dollar appeared to reestablish itself as the safe port of call in 2011s financial storm, even at the expense of gold. |
|
Markets reacted with relative calm this week to the news that Standard & Poors has downgraded its rating on nine Eurozone countries and has put all, with the exception of Germany and Slovakia on negative outlook, with the potential for further downgrades in the coming months. |
|
With the problems and uncertainties of the Euro Zone debt crisis continuing to dominate the headlines, including the threat that Hungary may enter the fray as the first country to default, there were further worries for markets to contend with as the ripples emanating from the spat between Iran and the US took a turn for the worst. |
|
At first glance, the economic news (what little there has been) at the beginning of 2012 has been rather better-than-expected, with some encouraging readings for manufacturing on a global basis. |