Greater London, England -- (SBWire) -- 12/13/2010 -- On 8th December, financial spread betting and CFD trading expert Giles Watts, Head of Equities at City Index (http://www.cityindex.co.uk), looks at spread betting market activity surrounding the news that President Obama has extended a tax cut:

“Key Indices in the UK and Germany fell today after a stronger US dollar, triggered by a spike in long terms treasury yields after President Obama extended a tax cut, pressurized commodity prices forcing heavyweight mining and energy stocks lower.

A drop in US Crude inventories, which fell more than double that of which the market had expected, made matters worse in the afternoon session, forcing the price of Nymex Crude Oil below $88 per barrel, and this subsequently forced energy stocks lower too.The fall below $88 started to attract buyers back into the market, who helped crude price to recover back above the $88 level into the European closing bell.

In truth, it has been a choppy trading session today with a lack of significant economic data giving the market very few amount of drivers and so therefore, traders have had very little news to help drive sentiment. As a result, traders have been largely going through the motions with the markets drifting sideways for much of the day until those weaker crude inventories came out and forced Indices lower.

One standout gainer today was Smith and Nephew, whose shares have rallied on the back of speculation in the British press that they may be subject to a bid from a US consortium. We saw traders pour into Smith and Nephews shares as the trading day progressed, giving the shares a healthy bullish momentum with prices going into the close near the day’s highs with gains of 10%.

On the downside, we have seen Capital Shopping Centres shares sold by those investors fearing a period of instability after shareholder and prospective bidder Simon Property threatened to sell its holding in the firm if they proceed with a planned £1.6bn acquisition of the Trafford Centre. CSC shares fell 5% on the day making it the worst stock performer on the FTSE 100.

In wider European trading, EADS shares rose over 2% after CFO Hans Peter Ring said in an interview to a German newspaper that they expect profits to significantly improve in 2012, claiming that Airbus has now come to grips with its problems developing the A380 and A400M.”

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