Please find below the Financial Fixed Odds report from David Evans, market analyst at BetOnMarkets.

Global Stock markets are relatively quiet today after yesterday’s mauling. Trader’s have one eye on the long weekend after another tumultuous week draws to a close.

Markets appear to have got a little too confident that the so called green shoots were leading to a meaningful and sustained economic recovery. What we saw yesterday and the day before was a sudden realisation that we are not out of the woods yet.

US unemployment continues to rise as US consumers, the life blood of the world’s biggest economy continue to tighten their belt. We had the credit crunch when banks were refusing to lend, now we have the shopping crunch with people refusing to spend.

The value of US commercial real estate continues to plunge as the number of high profile shopping malls expected to close in the US this year hits 100.

Financials are relatively quiet, ‘relative’ being the operative word. There is modest buying interest in Barclays as they progress with the plan to sell their BGI until. Insurers are performing well with investor’s impressed by the bullish talk from the Aviva CEO, who implied they could go on the acquisition trail. Prudential and Standard life are up in sympathy.

Today US treasuries are getting slammed. Yesterday Gilts were hit as Moody’s threatened to downgrade UK government debt. Now traders are speculating that the US government could also lose its AAA rating.

Gold appears to be taking up the slack as investors hunt for the combination of safety and inflation hedging that gold is perceived to provide.

In the FX markets, the pound has been hit but managed to hold its ground relatively well after the initial shock from the Moodys announcement.

GBP/USD Fixed Odds Trade

Even a potential downgrade to the UK debt rating was not enough to stall the pound’s rally against the dollar. This could continue for a few weeks as sterling is sought out as a recovery play. A Bull fixed odds trade predicting that GBP/USD will be higher than $1.5899 in 14 days time could offer a 100% return.

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