The markets this week

Despite what has been described as a historic budget, the markets were fairly unmoved this week. This tells you that they more-or-less predicted what happened, undermining Tory claims that this budget is despicable and will bring the end of the world (or words to that effect).

Below are the movements over the past week:
FTSE: 4155.99 (up 63.19 or 1.54%)
DOW: 8076.29 (down 55.04 or 0.68%)
£: $1.4672 (down 1.25¢ or 0.84%)
£: €1.1083 (down 2.62¢ or 2.31%)
Oil: $51.66 (down $1.64 or 3.1%)
Oil: £35.21* (down 81p or 2.25%)
Oil: €39.02* (down €1.84 or 4.51%)
Gold: $907.50 (up $37 or 4.25%)
Gold: £618.53 (up £30.24 or 5.14%)
Gold: €685.51 (up €18.09 or 2.71%)

Since budget week has brought out the doom-mongers, I'll just list the prices 13 weeks ago (3 months) and the % change since.
FTSE: 4052.47 (now 2.55% higher)
DOW: 8077.56 (now 0.02% lower)
£: $1.3806 (now 2.67% higher)
£: €1.0626 (now 4.30% higher - although that week was exceptional €1.11 and €1.13 were the figures for the week before and after)
Oil: $43.18 (up 19.6% in $, 12.6% in £ or 17.4% in €)
Gold: $875.75 (up 3.6% in $, down 2.5% in £, up 1.7% in €)

All of which goes to support the notion that you should ignore the daily shifts in valuation, unless you are a professional trader. If even weekly shifts are greater in degree than quarterly ones, then a longer view is surely better

Quick reminder: My Formula 1 blog is up and running, and will feature articles about the Bahrain GP this weekend. It can be found here