Comments on stock market movements

Time4T_Accounts

Hi all

Back pre-Covid the BBC news website, business pages, carried short comments explaining what was driving that day’s stock market movements. Unless they’ve been moved, the comments seem to have been dropped.  At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 is down 1.2%, and, though I can think of a few reasons for the fall, it might be helpful to read others’ views. Does anyone have any recommendations for anything similar to the old BBC comments?

cheers.

lozzy1965

If you google "ftse", I find that often there are 3 stories side by side, near the top, that give a comment on market movements / expectations.  Of course it is pure speculation because the market is driven by sentiment for future expectations.

dunstonh

At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 is down 1.2%, and, though I can think of a few reasons for the fall, it might be helpful to read others’ views.

It usually isn't just one thing.  For example, Sterling his risen today, so FTSE100 usually goes down when that happens (ignoring all other influences).  The tax rises were not popular with the markets and general concern that the UK has blown its opportunity to recover quickly and better than others due to early vaccinations.  Housing market has also gone off the boil.  China has also been cracking down more. Covid fears are hitting travel industry.  Overall confidence is down.

JohnWinder

Those explanations can be interesting, fun to consider, but probably of very little value. One could class them as adult entertainment; children would have little interest in them.

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=341161

In 'Stocks for the Long Run,' Jeremy Siegel wrote:

On November 15, 1991, when the Dow fell more than 120 points, or nearly 4 percent, Investor's Business Daily ran an article about the market entitled "Dow Plunges 120 in a Scary Stock Sell-Off: Biotechs, Programs, Expiration and Congress Get the Blame." In contrast, the London-based Financial Times published a front-page article by a New York writer entitled "Wall Street Drops 120 Points on Concern at Russian Moves." What is interesting is that such news, specifically that Russian government had suspended oil licenses and taken over the gold supplies, was not mentioned even once in the Investor's Business Daily article!

In 'The Black Swan', Nassim Nicholas Taleb had an even better one:

One day in December 2003, when Saddam Hussein was captured, Bloomberg News flashed the following headline at 13:01: U.S. Treasuries Rise; Hussein Capture May Not Curb Terrorism. ... Half an hour later, they had to issue a new headline. As these U.S. Treasury bonds fell in price (they fluctuate all day long, so there was nothing special about that), Bloomberg News had a new reason for the fall: Saddam's capture (the same Saddam). At 13:31 they issued the next bulletin: U.S. Treasuries Fall; Hussein Capture Boosts Allure of Risky Assets. So it was the same capture (the cause) explaining one event and its exact opposite.

Neruda

Steve_PL_too said:

Hi all

Back pre-Covid the BBC news website, business pages, carried short comments explaining what was driving that day’s stock market movements. Unless they’ve been moved, the comments seem to have been dropped.  At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 is down 1.2%, and, though I can think of a few reasons for the fall, it might be helpful to read others’ views. Does anyone have any recommendations for anything similar to the old BBC comments?

cheers.

You can have fun making up your own explanations for market movements. Or you can use 'catchup' on BBC radio online and listen to the markets bit of the 'Today' programme (generally at about 6.20 am on Radio 4) and the business programmes on the World Service.

Thrugelmir

Today's early summary. 

" London stocks fell in early trade on Thursday following downbeat US and Asian sessions, as investors eyed the latest policy announcement from the European Central Bank.
At 0830 BST, the FTSE 100 was down 0.8% at 7,035.87.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said: "The European Central Bank is expected to maintain its rates unchanged at today's meeting, and at many more meetings to come, but they are expected to start talking about tapering their bond purchases.

"And the potential taper talk doesn't necessarily please investors, as the Covid situation remains uncertain and European businesses need the ECB's support to go through what might be another dark winter."

The ECB rate announcement is due at 1245 BST."

MaxiRobriguez

Steve_PL_too said:

Hi all

Back pre-Covid the BBC news website, business pages, carried short comments explaining what was driving that day’s stock market movements. Unless they’ve been moved, the comments seem to have been dropped.  At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 is down 1.2%, and, though I can think of a few reasons for the fall, it might be helpful to read others’ views. Does anyone have any recommendations for anything similar to the old BBC comments?

cheers.

The stock market is down because confidence is down.

That's it. Any hindsight analysis is conjecture unless the author has spoken to either all of the dominant institutional players in the market or the millions upon millions of individual investors.

They never do, so whatever they write is opinion, not fact. 

Thrugelmir

MaxiRobriguez said:

Steve_PL_too said:

Hi all

Back pre-Covid the BBC news website, business pages, carried short comments explaining what was driving that day’s stock market movements. Unless they’ve been moved, the comments seem to have been dropped.  At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 is down 1.2%, and, though I can think of a few reasons for the fall, it might be helpful to read others’ views. Does anyone have any recommendations for anything similar to the old BBC comments?

cheers.

The stock market is down because confidence is down.

At a macro level in every session investors are net sellers or net buyers of stock. Some days a number of large cap dividend payers go ex div. 

More recently while the S&P 500 has been rising. On some days more stocks have fallen than risen. On one day the ratio was 2:1.  

ColdIron

Citywire have a number of publications, to save you visiting them all everyday you can subscribe to one or more of them and have them delivered to your email inbox AM/PM, daily, weekly etc

sevenhills

Steve_PL_too said:

Unless they’ve been moved, the comments seem to have been dropped.  At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 is down 1.2%, and, though I can think of a few reasons for the fall, it might be helpful to read others’ views. Does anyone have any recommendations for anything similar to the old BBC comments?

The FTSE all share is 1.3% down in the last month, but 5% up in 6 months.

older_and_no_wiser

Right this is it. This is the start of the big market correction and crash. The world is coming to an end. Everyone please sell all your shares before it's too late. 

Seriously, I reckon this is mainly due to the news of the national insurance rise which looks like it will go ahead. I'm sure things will get back to normal in a few days. Things got quite hairy during the big tech sell off in May but again it picked up after not too long. Market noise is best ignored and carry on investing as normal.