Idea of the day

Bitcoin has surged to its highest level in over a month, hitting a high of $9293.66 on Tuesday morning. This is the highest level that Bitcoin has traded at since mid March as the crypto currency rebounds from its worst first quarter ever, which saw it fall 48%.

UK banking stocks are once again under the spotlight this week as they report first quarter earnings. The UK banking sector has remained under pressure as international investors have continued to shun British banking stocks thanks, in part to Brexit uncertainties.

JD Sports is proving to be a rare ray of light in a very challenging environment, bucking the trend of falling retailers. Whilst UK retailers have experienced a very difficult winter, JD Sport has dodged UK high street gloom, overtaking Sports Direct as the UK’s leading sports retailer by market value.

The pound has resumed its climb versus the dollar as the new week kicks off. Sterling rallied 0.6% versus the dollar in the previous week as Brexit optimism and increased hopes of a rate hike in May from the Bank of England pushed the pound broadly higher.

Shares in JP Morgan, the largest US bank by assets, rallied 2.5% on Thursday as the bank reported a 35%increase in first quarter net profit to $8.71 billion, beating analysts’ estimates.The rally comes at the end of a three-week upward streak leading up to the earnings release.

Tomorrow at 08:30 EST (13:30 GMT-1) the US Labour Department’ non-farm payroll report will be released. The expectation is for 198k new jobs to have been created in March, down from the exceptional 313k in February. Meanwhile unemployment is expected to tick down to 4.0% to hit its lowest level since 2000.

Shares of the music streaming website Spotify could face significant volatility later today as they make their first appearance on the New York Stock Exchange, as the company has chosen an unorthodox way of listing.

As the new week kicks off sentiment is driving trading. Investors are digesting two key events. Firstly, President Trump’s announcement from last week, that a 25% tariff will be placed on US steel imports and that a 10% tariff will be placed on aluminium imports. The news prompted fears of retaliation by Europe, Canada and China and concerns of a trade war, concerns which were further aggravated by Trump tweeting that a trade war was “good”.

On Sunday the Italians will head to the polls. A year ago this was being hailed as a big risk event for the euro, however heading into the elections the markets have been relatively relaxed about the outcome.

The crucial Christmas trading period for retailers has so far proven to be mixed. Some, such as bellwether Next have, surprised on the upside, meanwhile others such as Debenhams, have more than disappointed, slotting in with the idea that retailers will bear the brunt of the squeeze being placed on the UK consumer as prices rise and wages fall in real terms.

Bitcoin landed in Wall Street. Yesterday the bitcoin enjoyed its first full day traded as a futures contract on the CBOE exchange. This is the first of several well-known, well recognised exchanges to trade bitcoin futures, with CME starting in just over a week and the Nasdaq expected to begin in quarter 2 of 2018.

Johnson Matthey’s interim trade results failed to set the market alight this morning, even though profit growth was roughly in line with expectations and the dividend was bumped up by 6%, however the share price tumbled on Tuesday. We believe that the Budget could provide a lifeline to Johnson Matthey later this week. See why here:

When there is so much to focus on in the markets it can be helpful to narrow your focus to one or two charts which can help you to come up with actionable trading ideas. Below we take a look at two charts that should be on every trader’s radar today.

The 10-year US Treasury yield is worth watching closely in the coming sessions. It is close to a key resistance level at 2.4%, see chart 1 below, this is the third time since March that it has attempted to break above this level, and above here opens the way to the highest level for a year for the 10-year yield at 2.62%.

The ECB meeting this coming Thursday is focussing minds on what could come next for European stocks and the euro. We believe that whatever Draghi and co. at the ECB decide to do it may not be enough to save European stocks from a pullback for a few reasons...

The Spanish index may have taken a knock today after the Catalan government failed to revoke its pledge for independence and Madrid’s response to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy, however this is an index that is going places, and we think that traders should take note of a few things.

The price of the precious metal palladium has more than doubled in the last 2.5 years, and it briefly touched $1000 per ounce on Monday, the highest level since 2001. Although it couldn’t sustain life above this level, the palladium story looks supportive for further price gains and palladium is the best performing precious metal so far this year.

UK utility companies are the worst performing sector on the FTSE 100 so far this year. As you can see in chart 1 below, all of the major UK utilities companies including National Grid, Centrica, Severn Trent, Southern & Scottish Electricity and United Utilities have suffered declines, even though the FTSE 100 has rallied for most of the past month.

The collapse of Monarch airlines on Sunday night saw a strong rally in other UK carriers such as IAG, Easyjet and even Ryanair, itself beleaguered by its recent cancellation of thousands of flights. The British airline industry has been hit by two major events in as many weeks, and it could impact share price dynamics as we lead up to the end of the year.

The German election may have had a muted impact on the markets even if failed to deliver Angela Merkel the share of the vote that she had wanted, and the rise of the AfD Far Right party spooked some European political commentators.

There has been an interesting divergence of late between the performance of the Dax and the FTSE 100. The two have diverged sharply in recent days, as you can see in the chart below, with the Dax surging ahead, while the FTSE 100 has been in the doldrums.

What: Budget airline Ryanair made a shocking announcement over the weekend that it was cancelling up to 50 flights a day for the next 6 weeks due to “mess up” that means a backlog of pilots’ will be taking their annual leave at the same time. It's share price dropped sharply, but it could be a turning point for the budget airline, find out why.