Daily Spread Betting and Financial Market Round-up

Financial markets round-up
Tuesday December 11, 2007

Spread betting opportunities : Financial market update

The 25 basis point cut in US interest rates triggered a sharp sell-off in equities on Wall Street. Market expectations had been finely balanced with the futures markets indicating broadly similar probabilities for either a 25 basis point cut or a 50 basis point reduction. In the end, the quarter of a percentage point was deemed too little to forestall the anticipated weakness in the US economy.

Having opened flat to higher, the Dow Jones ended the day down about 2.14%, a loss of 294.26 spreadbetting points, to finish at 13432.77. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index lost 2.53% to close at 1477.65—down 38.31 points for the session. Technology stocks did not fare much better, as the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 66.6 points (2.45%) to finish at 2652.35.

The Footsie ended Tuesday at 6536.9, down by 28.5 spreadbetting points, led by declines in the banking and house-building sector. Overall, the LSE was pretty quiet as investors on this side of the Atlantic were wary of front running the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) decision on US interest rates which was release at 7.15pm London time.

FTSE 100 - winners

Enterprise Inns [+5.47%]
BG Group [+3.75%]
Tullow Oil [+2.75%]
ITV [+2.63%]
Xstrata [+2.24%]

FTSE 100 - losers

Northern Rock [-4.66%]
British Land [-4.06%]
Kingfisher [-3.51%]
Royal Bank of Scotland [-3.42%]
Standard Chartered [-2.76%]

FTSE 250 - winners

Thomas Cook Group [+6.77%]
Speedy Hire [+6.73%]
Keller Group [+6.48%]
Carpetright [+6.40%]
Victrex [+5.17%]

FTSE 250 - losers

Severfield-Rowen [-5.27%]
Benfield Group [-5.13%]
Morgan Sindall [-4.57%]
Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group [-4.42%]
Savills [-4.10%]

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