London View

Nikkei at New 8-Month High, eBay Suffers in the Wake of Apple Pay Announcement

RBS and Lloyds have made it clear that they will be moving their holding companies to England in the event of Scottish independence, with both firms seeing their shares surge this morning; RBS is currently up by around 1.7% and Lloyds by around 1%. The FTSE is currently down by around 0.2%, while the DAX and CAC are both down over in mainland Europe in the wake of the ECB statement earlier, which amongst other things downgraded the Euro zone’s growth forecast for 2014 and 2015, the former to 0.9 down from 1.0 and the latter to 1.6 down from 1.8.

This morning’s Asian session saw the Nikkei hit an 8-month high, boosted once again by the weak Yen. USD hit a new six-year high against the Japanese currency at 1:107.02 and Japanese exporters gained as a result, driving the Index up by 0.8% to a 15,909.20 level. Gold in the meantime is at a three-month low, with the easing of tensions in Ukraine and the positive outlook for the US economy leading to investors emerging from the traditional safe haven commodity.

In stocks news, Apple shares stages a rebound yesterday, with its new mobile payments option (Apple Pay) and a new generation of iPhones outweighing the underwhelming reaction to the new Apple Watch.  Apple stock rose by over 3% yesterday to close at a level of 101.00. However, eBay shares fell by 3% on Tuesday after Apple’s announcement, falling by a further 3% yesterday, with worries that Apple Pay will encroach on the territory currently controlled by eBay-owned Paypal.