Positive market sentiment has certainly been rising continuously over the last few months – certainly amongst US investors and in particular institutional ones. The financial crisis, the 2000 tech bubble, the MBS collapse – all have seemingly been consigned to the nether regions of investors’ memories.

The more regular readers amongst you will know that I hold a lot of participants in the financial markets industry in extremely low regard. This is not without reason or experience however.

A currency war is essentially a competitive devaluation of a country’s currency relative to others or against a basket of currencies in an attempt to boost exports (external demand) and so add impetus to that country’s industry. It is, traditionally, the easiest way to become competitive…

Gold has most certainly been in an impressive uptrend for the last 15 years. However, during 2012, gold has been absent the physical demand driver and, even though its price has risen modestly, the trend has not been as linear as in prior years.

In this feature we resume our special piece on the major shakeouts in the last 100 years including Friday the 13th mini-crash of 1989, the October 27 1997 mini-crash, the 9/11 aftermath crash of 2001, the 2008 Great Financial Crisis crash, and finally the curious phenomenon of the 2010 flash crash.

In a special two part piece that will conclude next month we look back at the major stock market crashes of the past 100 years including the great Wall Street Crash of 1929 and Black Monday of 1987.

Oil, crude, brent, light sweet, black gold – whatever you want to call it, one thing’s for certain, it is perhaps the most important of all commodities. After the end of World War II, the price of oil was heavily regulated through both production and price controls in order to keep the commodity relatively stable as its importance in the economy was rising.

Over the last few years, especially following Ireland’s bailout, many voices have been heard, many debates have been made and many newspapers have been sold; all centred on the Eurozone’s problems and trying to explore the potential consequences of a possible breakup.

A few years ago I decided to do a little back-testing of the link between favourable fundamentals and future price performance; in particular the link between dividend yield, P/E and PEG