Greater London, England -- (SBWire) -- 12/20/2010 -- Financial spread betting expert Giles Watts, Head of Equities at http://www.cityindex.co.uk, looks at EU market activity surrounding equities on 15th December:

“Equity markets continued the range bound theme of the week in early trading today with investors possibly seeking to bag end of year bargains on dips.

The FTSE100 was down -15.4pts to 5875, the DAX down -46pts to 6981 and the CAC40 down 28pts to 3874.

All the major bourses were slightly weaker on the day although moves seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things after 6-7 consecutive days of gains. The tight trading range of today, and of this week, has felt tentative and lacking conviction to make a break in either direction. Both the bulls and the bears seem content with current market levels and are sitting on their hands awaiting anything that could instigate a move of conviction.

The UK leading index appears to be pegged back today following lack lustre performance by the big hitting banking and mining sectors, each accounting for 10pts of this morning’s move. It is clear to see during these quiet periods how reliant the FTSE is on financial and mining stocks, heavily weighted these sectors dictate the outcome of the day without any other factors to hand.

One stock of note this morning is the retailer SuperGroup who updated the market with interim results. At first glance the results seem ok, however, with all the positive hype surrounding the fashion house of late investors saw today’s update as an opportunity to bank profits. At the open the stock traded 8p higher than yesterday’s close at 1636p, this was short lived and the sellers savagely sold stock forcing it to a low of 1301p by around 9am, down £1.26 on the day (or -20%). Although the stock has slightly recovered, and the longer term view of the stock is deemed positive with most analysts, today’s move indicated investors were happy to bank profits following a very good performance this year, the stock is up from around 500p when it first listed in March.

Investors are eagerly awaiting anything that may spark the market into life, so for now it appears all eyes will be looking toward today’s US macro data – Mortgage Applications at 12pm (GMT), CPI at 1:30pm (GMT) and Industrial Production at 2.15pm (GMT). Until then markets will remain quiet and lacking direction.”

Most activity we have seen thus far has taken place in the following stocks:

Capital Shopping Centres, was up +10.7p (+2.7%) to 406.7p, following an indicative offer from Simon Property worth 425p per share, a 7% premium to yesterday’s closing price of 396p. Capital Shopping Centres lists Lakeside at Thurrock and the MetroCentre at Gateshead in their property portfolio.

BP was up +2p (0.5%) to 475.2p, the oil giants positive tone continued from yesterday as the rumour mill was again stirred into life as a possible offer may be forth coming. Whether there is substance to the rumour remains to be seen but it seems investors are singing to the tune of ‘buy the rumour, sell the fact’ at present.

Barclays, was down -7.6p (-2.8%) to 264.4p, following a poor morning session for UK banks which have been weighed down by Moody's note of caution on Spain's credit rating. The UK banking sector was down -1.13% and accounting for 10pts of the negative move on the leading UK Index.”

Keep up with market activity on the move with City Index’s spread betting iPhone app. Learn more about it at http://www.cityindex.co.uk/trading-platform/iphone-trading-platform.aspx.

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