Financial News

Broker report: March

By Business & Finance
15 March 2017
broker investment

Paul Laverty, head of Business Development at DEGIRO Ireland discusses the major market stories for March.


TWITTER TRADING
As with any new president, investors are waiting to see how Trump will affect markets during his time in the Oval Office. One unique issue which arises with Trump though is his frequent activity on social media. With 24 million Twitter followers, the new US commander in chief has an unparalleled outlet which can send markets reeling in 140 characters or less.

In what is developing into a new investment strategy, retail as well as professional traders are trying to Trump the market by reacting to the President’s company specific tweets.

Recent attacks have included cost shaming Boeing over Air Force One upkeep charges and slamming department store chain Nordstrom’s for perceived slights against the first daughter.

Trump’s tweets are not limited to the pessimistic though. While he has called out GM and Toyota for investment into Mexico, he has praised Ford and Fiat for keeping jobs in America. Meanwhile companies are also hitting back. Tech giants Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft have come out against the controversial ‘Muslim ban’ limiting entry into the US for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries with the Uber CEO stepping down from his participation on Trump’s advisory council.

BREXODUS
With Theresa May now in charge of triggering Article 50, British banking businesses look toward other countries to maintain an EU foothold. Barclays has already announced that it has opted for Dublin as their post-Brexit headquarters and Credit Suisse has also expressed an interest in moving back office jobs to Ireland.

Dublin may have to fight for some of the post Brexodus business though as German financial regulators are looking to ease the move of foreign firms into Germany in a bid to coax businesses into moving their operations to Frankfurt.

Banks would be able to keep their current models for setting capital requirements for a two-year transition period. Said to be considering Frankfurt as their new EU hub are Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and UBS.

Paul Laverty, DEGIRO

DAWN OF AN AI-ERA
In what could be the start of a major shift into automated investing strategies in the hedge fund world, for the first time computer driven strategies are competing for the title of the most successful hedge fund.

With Theresa May now in charge of triggering Article 50, British banking businesses look toward other countries to maintain an EU foothold

In LCH Investment’s annual list of the top hedge fund managers of 2016, 4 of the top 20 best performing funds are managed by a systems-based or algorithmic trading approach. The four funds have made $113 billion in net gains and make up nearly a quarter of the total gains of the top 20.

It’s not only the funds industry which is seeing a move toward automation in the increasingly digitalised financial world. Professional services firm Accenture expects thousands of banking jobs to be replaced by automated regulatory systems in a move toward ‘robo compliance’.

Meanwhile sell side research reports are becoming an increasingly outdated tool in a world where investors have instant access to breadth of information and online investment platforms.

Photo: Business image created by Pressfoto – Freepik.com

ABOUT DEGIRO

Offering fees 95% lower than competitors, DEGIRO clients trade with the lowest share dealing costs in Ireland. With low transaction costs, no minimums, and no annual or custodian charges, we don’t consider DEGIRO to be the cheaper alternative to investing so much as we see our competitors being needlessly expensive.

Clients of DEGIRO have access to over 60 markets across the world, can trade 700 ETFs commission free, and now have free real time price feeds to US stocks.

Originally from The Netherlands, DEGIRO started as an institutional broker in 2008 and began offering services to retail clients in 2013.

DEGIRO is now one of the ten largest broker in Europe and has won broker awards from the Financial Times and Investors Chronicle (UK), Beleggers Belangen (Netherlands), Investir (France), and Handelsblatt (Germany).

The information above does not constitute a public offer or a solicitation to purchase any securities or financial instruments. Any investment decision regarding financial instruments should be based on individual, professional advice and a prospectus published by an authorised body. In creating this analysis DeGiro is not doing so as an investment adviser or due to some duty conferred by law. The information has been provided with due care and attention but DeGiro is not liable for the correctness / completeness of exchange data and economic information, exchange rates, or general market data. This information and opinion is representative of the time of publish and does not project future performance.