A brief look at last week and the week ahead, the Weekly Review from IG Index.
Weekly Trading Report 11 January 2010 - Last Week's Trading Highlights
The FTSE shrugged off late Wall Street losses on New Year's Eve, hitting a new 16-month high on Monday.
The continuing rise of commodity prices, positive domestic and Chinese manufacturing figures and significant M&A activity helped to drive sentiment.
Food giant Nestlé sold its 52% holding in Alcon, a US eye-care company, to Swiss drug maker Novartis for $28.1 billion. Refocusing its core business, Nestlé then bought Kraft's US frozen-pizza division for $3.7 billion.
Kraft in turn increased the cash element of its bid for Cadbury, while Nestlé ruled out a rival bid for the UK chocolate maker. Kraft admitted on Wednesday that only 1.52% of Cadbury shareholders had accepted the $16.8 billion hostile bid.
On the high street, John Lewis recorded its best-ever Christmas, with like-for-like sales up 12.7% on last year. Sales at Waitrose were up 20.8% from a year ago, outperforming rival Marks & Spencer which recorded an increase of 0.8% year-on-year in the three months to Boxing Day.
Next upweighted its full-year profit forecast after reporting a jump of 5.2% year-on-year in overall sales, in the 22 weeks up to December 24.
Elsewhere the Bank of England froze the base rate at 0.5% and maintained its quantitative easing programme.
Employment was the key topic of the week in the US with a series of important indicators being released. The ADP report revealed that US companies shed an estimated 84,000 jobs in December.
The week came to a close with the much anticipated non-farm payrolls showing a worse-than-expected drop of 85,000 jobs in December, compared with a 4000 gain in November.
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Weekly Trading Report 11 January 2010 - The Week Ahead
Indicators
The second full trading week of the year comes to life on Wednesday with the NIESR GDP estimate for December at home and the Fed’s influential Beige Book in the US.
Meanwhile in the Eurozone, analysts will be looking to see whether Thursday’s ECB announcement keeps interest rates at their historic lows.
Company Results and Reports
A quiet UK reporting calendar is offset by some notable names in the US. Aluminium giant Alcoa releases fourth-quarter numbers on Monday, followed by technology and banking majors Intel and JPMorgan Chase on Thursday and Friday respectively.
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For previous weeks see below.
Note - Spread Betting carries a high level of risk to your capital and you can lose more than your initial investment, it may not be suitable for all investors. Ensure you only speculate with money that you can afford to lose and that you fully understand the risks involved and seek independent financial advice where necessary.
'Financial Spread Betting 11 January 2010', Review by D. Jones, last update: 11-Jan-10
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