Betfair Official Blog

With a perfect sense of religious timing, the markets begin to emerge from the dead

Daily View - 25th March...

So the Easter weekend is over and, as we wade through the snow drifts, spring is in the air, if not love.

Markets look to be on the up this morning as the early call is for the FTSE to come in some 120 points higher at around 5620 after yesterday's rally in the US and Far East. Notwithstanding this opening call the performance of the UK's premier index has been something of a disappointment in recent days, as we eye the 800+ point bounce in the Dow and today's 1000 point push in the Hang Seng. The relief rally caused by the Fed's various moves seems to have largely passed us by. On an equivalent move for the FTSE versus the Dow/S&P we should be somewhere around 5800.

The news that JP Morgan has increased its offer for Bear Stearns by 500% (this must be something of a record!) will have the financial sector on the up and up, and the calls for Barclays, HSBC and yes, even HBOS, are for substantial shifts higher. Any latent shorts will be suffering this morning and there is a good chance of a secondary rally on the open as weak bears are forced into covering positions.

Commodities also had an exciting time of it yesterday, with Gold trading the 912 to 925 range several times and this morning jumping $12 from the aforementioned low of 912 (where we closed last night), to the high of 924.5-925.0 on the open today. The pull-back from the highs of 1030 has been quite spectacular but recent retreats (over the last two/three years) have generally been worse than this, so 'new' bulls should be wary of getting too excited by the chance of getting in at a cheaper level.