City Index’s team of CFD trading experts have extensive experience of the financial markets. Here, Joshua Raymond gives his EU market update for October 11th to give you a trading edge.

London, Greater London -- (SBWire) -- 10/21/2010 -- Joshua Raymond, Market Strategist at CFD trading provider City Index (http://www.cityindex.co.uk) commented:

“European Indices started the week in positive territory tracking the late surge in US markets last Friday that saw the Dow Jones close above the psychologically important 11,000 level.

The Dow closing above the 11,000 level has been a positive catalyst for European equities, but with major US companies set to announce earnings from tomorrow including Intel, and a heavy week of macroeconomic data to come, the positive follow through from US markets has been kept on a bit of a leash.

As what can be relatively normal for a Monday morning session, most equity moves are a direct result from changes in broker outlooks or recommendations.

Prudential is one company that has suffered from a broker downgrade, with traders selling its shares after JP Morgan Cazenove cut its rating on the Insurance firm to ‘underweight’ from ‘neutral’ on valuation grounds. BP shares have also fallen over 3p after RBS downgraded their view on the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’, citing their belief that upside potential will be limited until investors regain confidence that the oil giant was not to blame for the Macondo disaster.

There is very little on the economic data and earnings front today and therefore there is a lack of key drivers behind Indices. The resilience shown in major Indices despite the poor payrolls number last week is clearly a sign that investors are now pricing in more stimulus from the Fed.

That said, the bullish moves that have been triggered from the optimism of more quantitative easing seems to have run out of steam quickly and therefore traders will watch closely company earnings, which could provide further triggers to the upside for wider Indices.”

For more on CFD trading, try a free City Index seminar. See a list of upcoming workshops at http://www.cityindex.co.uk/learn-to-trade/seminars.aspx.

About City Index
Today more and more individual traders are discovering the benefits of derivatives, and many of them are discovering them through a City Index trading platform.

As a group, we transact in excess of 1.5 million trades every month for individuals in over 50 countries worldwide. We provide access to a wide range of instruments including margined foreign exchange, CFD trading and, in the UK, financial spread betting.

We constantly look to widen the range of assets we offer, improve the performance of our platforms and expand the range of services we provide. The result is that our customers benefit from innovative trading tools with transparent pricing, competitive spreads, and a high standard of customer service and support.