Comments yesterday from Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi that the kingdom was determined to maintain market share and would not cut production, even if the price of crude fell even further, makes it likely that oil prices will not rebound strongly from the current $60 level in 2015, without a major geopolitical event.

The US markets are hitting all time highs once again as third quarter GDP growth came in at an annualised rate of 5% and better than expected sending the equity indices and dollar up.

Yesterday the following article appeared in the New York Post that 17 year old High School students Mohammed Islam and Damir Tulemaganbetov had made millions playing the stock market. Now it appears that the story was completely made up…

After the recent allegations of inappropriate supplier payments at Tesco which significantly flattered profits at the troubled company, today it was announced that Chris Ronnie, the former chief executive of JJB Sports, had gone one better by personally taking nearly £1 million from the company’s suppliers before it went bust in 2012.

After the Dow Jones Industrials flirted with the key 18,000 level in the first week of December its been down hill all the way for the major stock market indices in the last week as investors have finally got jittery.