Betfair Official Blog

6000 is the magic number apparently...

Daily View - 26th February

The 6000 level on the FTSE 100 seems to resemble our current government and its tax policies. Every time we look like seeing a new piece of legislation from Brown & Co, they just turn the other way. The FTSE 100 chart of the last five weeks has made three attempts at getting back above the psychological 6000, but keeps rejecting it. We are calling the market to open some 15 points higher at 6014, but like many of the opening calls recently, this currently unpredictable market could quickly make up its own mind and trade way off the mark.

This morning some of the European banks seem to have released some upbeat results which will only fuel the bulls into believing that the worst is over. However, one can't but think that they're just pulling the wool as the fall out from the credit crunch isn't done yet, despite the recent confidence-boosting news flow. Standard Chartered, the only bank to have posted a gain in 2007, is expected to release full year figures today in another big week for the banking sector, with HBOS reporting tomorrow and RBS on Thursday.

There's little in the way of UK economic data today, but we do get inflationary data followed by consumer confidence released across the pond. If you asked any American shopper (or indeed British for that matter) what they believed to be the current state of affairs with the economy, they'll probably give you exactly the same answer as the highest paid economists will be extracting from the data later today - prices are getting higher and confidence is falling - further evidence that the US is in a recession and the UK can't be that far behind.

Gold is experiencing a bit of profit taking as it rejects the $950 level, and with clients still long on the precious metal, its unlikely to be long before they'll be buying more of the yellow stuff as that's what they've been doing every time the price dips. With $70 to go before the $1,000, it's only a mere 7.5% away from what looks like destiny.