Financial Betting Articles

The Bad News And The (Possible) Good News

Lovers of the pugilistic art of getting two cash-strapped men into a ring with a view to pummelling each other into unconsciousness may be interested to learn that your ChoiceOdds mole had a ringside seat at a City bash (quite literally) last week. My Boy in the Blue corner looked to be losing me a nifty fifty when the cut under his eye started to spread. But hope was returned when his trainer worked his magic (BUPA, surely) and he came out not only fighting but cut-free. Red Shorts was buckling under a blizzard of Blue Boy biffs and I declared that the drinks were on me. Hope turned to despair, however, when said cut returned and the Referee - parachuted in by his Mum no doubt - called time on the fight.

Why do I bring up this sorry mess? Because I fear the public's memory is getting a tad short. I fear that not so very long ago the markets were on the ropes with blood streaming down its face but that now the public have convinced themselves that it was some kind of rope-a-dope. I've got some bad news: it wasn't.

The boxing match I had the bad luck to invest in was attended by a not inconsiderable amount of City Big Wigs - and some squaws, but that's another story altogether. And the room - the magnificent chandeliered ballroom - had a certain smell: it wasn't money, though it should have been. It wasn't bloodlust. It wasn't lust (look, I promised not to talk about the squaws). It was fear. Good old fashioned thank-God-I'm-wearing-black-trousers fear. It was grown men staring into glasses of Chablis mumbling that "I haven't seen anything like this in 20 years". It was bankers smiling weakly. Hedge Fund managers breaking into periodic cold sweats. Bond traders curled up in corners, rocking backwards and forwards and hugging small, worn blue blankets, saying "Blanky love me, Blanky do...".

You see, the public are looking at the markets the way I looked at my Boy in Blue after his cut had been repaired. He was back! What could go wrong? I was a fool to worry! That little stumble? A mere hiccup on the road to a knockout victory... What was I thinking? You see that cut under the market's eye... it's about to reopen.

The problem, my punchdrunk friend, is that the banks aren't lending to each other. And they're meant to lend to each other. That's how the City works. They pass our money around, skim a little bit off the top and everybody's happy. But now they're hugging their money like a little blue security blanket. They're too scared to lend. They're too strapped for ready cash to lend. They're too confused to lend! Which means it's all going to grind to a halt. The cut is about to reopen. The guy in Red - Recession - is about to floor us with the haymaker to end all haymakers... unless...

I said there might be some Good News. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, the old Bank of England herself, might yet join the Blue Corner and patch that eye up good and proper as only she knows how. Will she do it? It's unclear. So far she's sat there knitting like a widow at a French Revolution execution. However, it's a stitch in time we need now. But is there time...?

I don't know. What I do know is that these markets could be in for a fight. It might be clean and quick. It could be brutal. Either way, they are the main attraction and we should take our positions please for a Thriller in Manilla, a Rumble in the Jungle, a Beating In The, Erm, Interbank Markets...

Will the markets be Rocky? You betcha. Log on at ChoiceOdds.com for your ringside seat.

The Dax lost 176.29 points on Friday, the biggest one day drop since July.

However, since the beginning of August, the Dax has closed up 17 times and down just 11, meaning healthy profits for backers

Last week Wall Street traded within an average daily range of 265.39 points, compared to a daily average of 252.47 the previous week and 249.47 the week before that.

The combined weight of the England and South Africa rugby forwards is so immense, the host town of Saint-Denis will actually sink 4mm during Friday's World Cup match.

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