FTSE hits 6 week high whilst Alibaba breaks records

Tuesday morning’s strong earnings reports by companies like Vodafone and Renishaw led to continued strength in the UK markets, with the FTSE reaching a 6 week high of 6631.7. However, the FTSE’s strong Tuesday will not matter if the UK’s announcements on Wednesday fail to satisfy. Tomorrow sees the reveal of the average earnings index, forecast to be up 0.9% compared to 0.7% in the previous month, with a predicted decrease of 24.9k people claiming unemployment related benefits. However, this forecast is to be taken with caution, as October’s predicted number was -34.2k, whilst the actual figure was far lower at -18.6 thousand. Just after these figures comes the Bank of England inflation report as well as a conference by Governor Mark Carney, fresh off of his reveal of the new banking rules for those previously labelled ‘too big to fail’. If these predicted figures are accurate, and the BoE’s announcement confident, then the recent positive sentiment surrounding the FTSE could continue.

In Eastern Europe, Ukraine remains a source of potential volatility in the markets as the USA expressed fears over the number of military reinforcements arriving in the country from Russia. However oil, the usual benefactor from unpredictability in that area of the world continued to fail to turnaround its recent misfortunes, spending much of Tuesday hovering lower than the 8200 mark at around 8160-8190. As oil prices remain low, producers such as Tullow Oil and Afren suffered today, dropping 5.3% and 6.4% respectively.

After more record closings yesterday, the Dow opened at 17615.64, 2 points higher than the previous close.  And after the push for informative technology tariff elimination this morning, eased tensions proved limited, as the exclusion of the China from the Trans-Pacific Partnership has caused China to push ahead with its rival Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which could include Russia, another superpower excluded from the TPP. Much of this stems from China’s reluctance to have their markets forced open to avoid the isolation the TPP could potentially cause for them.

In shares new, TalkTalk was the other big communications announcement today, and despite a 3.3% rise in half year revenue, the reaction from the market communities was far less positive than it was towards Vodafone. Whilst the latter company jumped around 6% on the markets today, to a peak of 222.4, TalkTalk’s stock prices moved by a similar amount in the opposite direction, falling to a low point of 280.15.The video advertising company Blinkx reported poor first half figures today, with a loss of $9.7 million, a stark contrast to the position they were in the same time last year, where Blinkx reported profits of $10.7 million. One of the reasons Blinkx have given for these major losses is the harmful effects of a negative blog post by Harvard Business School associate professor Ben Edelman, who, somewhat unbelievably, caused stock prices to plunge 50% with his critique in July.

Unsurprisingly, the statistics for Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales were staggering: $1bn in 18 minutes, $2bn in the first hour, and the previous year’s record broken only 13.5 hours in, with 43% of sales made on mobile phones. Projections are now suggesting that sales could surpass the initial estimation of $8.2 billion, as Alibaba reached that target with 3 hours to go. As avid watchers wait to see whether sales can push $10 billion, Alibaba Group opened 200 points lower for a drop of 2%, and is currently trading at around 11650.