Swinging markets…static reality
I know commentaries have been very intermittent in the last couple of weeks but there is so much silliness in the markets that to attempt to decipher what is happening during these summer months would be akin to trying to look for excitement and skill in a game of cricket – a futile enterprise. The most action has been taking place in the world of Premiership football, as the newly-minted Manchester City team are using their Abu Dhabi backed funds to put together the modern day equivalent of a gladiatorial dream-team, individually capable of taking on all-comers, but the secret recipe will be whether or not the attitudes and differing characters of each of the players will be able to come together to play-as-one and succeed as a team. If you believe the omnipresent doomsayer Nouriel Roubini, who recently rebutted stories that he was actually thawing and slightly less-pessimistic on the markets, well, there’s no hope for anyone.
A bit like the markets actually, where a whole host of newly optimistic traders and short-term investors have been pushing markets up across Asia, Europe and the US in recent days (avg. daily gains in Asia close to 2%/day in recent trading, S&P500 +8% in a week). There are those clinging on to those snippets of “less-than-bad” news, and there are those continuing to try to out-smart and out-pace the others trying to do exactly the same – sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me rather than a resolute and winning team approach.
The volatility in currency trading and commodities has continued throughout the month, Gold especially re-establishing itself above $950/oz (the trend upwards has actually matched the S&P’s gains), Oil getting over its hissy-fit on the heels of the rogue-trader debacle a couple of weeks back – now resting at around the $65/brl level again – and the oh-so-temperamental Cable shuffling up and down the track until deciding to head off and cross the 1.65 level for the first time this month – again, major movements in currency rates are often the first warning signs of a new shift in investor outlook – the smartest individuals always play the high-stakes game in a casino, and in the gambling world that the financial markets are, the high-rollers shift around the small but frequently profitable currency rates.
Last year, the excessive fall in the value of the GBP vs US$ was the first sign of a flight-to-safety that started way back in August, a good few weeks before the start of the nightmare with the Lehman collapse, and all the fun that ensued. We’re not far from the quietest and nervy of all trading months, and this August may well prove another important watershed.
Dubai Dirt or Dirty Description of Dubai?
Before signing off, an article in the notoriously rude and often aggressive British press yesterday caught the attention of many a reader it seems, focusing on the easiest target of all, the seedy side of Dubai. Those that have followed these commentaries for some time will certainly know Dubai is not spared a soft critique, but the sheer violence and aggression with which the journalist in the Sunday Times proceeded to pick at Dubai’s woes and very insultingly comment upon the misgivings between the UAE’s religious beliefs and the reality that lies underneath was both shocking and worryingly biased.
The writer would have been better served with less time spent on talk of the prostitutes and other well-known and long-ago criticised “professional” trades, and more effort on the opportunities that the more clean-living and law-abiding individual can take advantage of – it really seemed to me that the author was precisely the low-quality type of ex-pat westerner that the UAE can kindly do without, thank you very much – I mean, how can he complain when the first thing he does when arriving in Dubai is seek out the dirtiest, dingiest club possible (I wouldn’t know personally, but I’ve heard from others) – some dive in the Metropolitan.
Seriously, what was he expecting? Every city, and every hotel bar in every city in the world, has its fair share of professional women lurking about. London is no different. Has anyone ever spent an evening in the lobby of the W in New York on a Saturday night? Come on, sex-for-money should not be a defining element of a city, and should not provide the back-bone for an ill-judged and blatantly vindictive article that did nothing but play up to the low-quality ex-pat crowd – most likely many of them effectively kicked out of Dubai after realising they were too ineffective (that’s a nice way of saying stupid) to even make it here.
You can read the article here (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6716543.ece) and see for yourself that it includes nothing nearly as witty or thought out as a “soft-shell crab index” nor any other insightful and well-written commentary with a keen-eye-for-the-cynical for that matter!
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