Markets 11-15 May 2009

Bad news this week, but not on the scale we became accustomed to over the winter. Below are listed the Friday closing levels of several markets, and a comparison with their levels one week earlier - designed to eliminate "noise" from daily data you might hear on the news).

FTSE: 4348.11 (down 113.98 pts or 2.55%)

DOW: 8268.64 (down 306.01 pts or 3.57%)

£: $1.5179 (down 0.51¢ or 0.33%)

£: €1.1241 (up 0.73¢ or 0.65%)

Oil: $56.07 (down $2.12 or 3.64%)

Oil: £36.94 (down £1.27 or 3.32%)

Oil: €41.52 (down €1.15 or 2.69%)

Gold: $929.50 (up $22.50 or 2.48%)

Gold: £612.36 (up £16.82 or 2.83%)

Gold: €688.35 (up €23.26 or 3.50%)

In italics is the only measure that doesn't match the glum mood. Stock markets rise with good news, as does the pound (perceived as more vulnerable to a struggling world economy) and so does oil (implied increased demand) whereas gold falls (implied decline in instability).

Below is a graph which I hope demonstrates the correlation between oil and the pound. See how, especially over the past two months, the oil price as measured in pounds is more stable than the others.

Nothing British

There's nothing British about the BNP. Their desire for a 99.9% white British society greatly conflicts with Britain's clearly observed love of Gurkhas and various other non-white groups (from footballers to singers to actors or even for Barack Obama).

Why is it that we find ourselves in a position where we expect some BNP leaders to enter the European Parliament?

Any region that elects a BNP MEP is a region I don't want to live in. Help me stay in the country (!) when you vote on June 4th.

A solution

El Pais has the solution:

"I'll count to three, and when you wake up, you won't remember anything that's happened, and you'll go back to buying houses and investing in the stock markets." (Own translation).