Any Given Friday c2007

Well it may be a quiet day here in Europe, indices little changed and little intraday movement to boot; but the rumour mill is working overtime, bid spec in Man grp from BarCap, Telefonica for KPN, Eni for Tullow, Chinese stakebuilding in IPR and cap raising in Pru. It’s like the old days, a Friday in 2007! And why not, for as we know, the last two years never happened and everything is perfectly rosey again.

The UK CPI and RPI came in ahead of expectations and the RICS survey even showed an rise in house prices for the first time since May 20007. In spite of this, sterling has seen some selling as Merv says cutting rates the BOE pays on deposits could be a "useful supplement" to monetary policy. And the friendless pound can’t even get some lovin’ from the Euro today as EURGBP rallies in the face of the negative ZEW survey. 1.6455 is the next level in cable where stops will be triggered, I am told by those on FX desks.

Equity markets are not wholly voluminous today, running sub 100% of the 20day MAV, which sounds healthy enough but if you strip out the Italian divi washes that number will be lower. Some of the steels are strong today, up a couple of percent perhaps post the Citi note today and JPM note yday. Tech is outperforming too, up 1%. Mind you, if you constructed a rights issue sector, that would certainly be the leader today, in percentage terms anyway, if not weighting Heidelberger Cement up 10%, Petroplus up 7%, Wienerberger up 4%.

This afternoon’s excitement comes in the form of retail sales which could be a decent number. Certainly the auto side will get a big boost from the cash for clunkers programme but how the clean number comes in will be a different question especially if CFC has seen money channelled in its direction which could have been put into other areas.