Traders add to their shorts on FTSE ahead of 5000

The recent upswing in the FTSE100 index to 4950 has caught many spread betting punters on the hop, but undeterred, they are extending short positions in the hope of a setback near the 5000 resistance level.

Bookmakers said clients were net short of all the main indices this morning, apart from the Japanese Nikkei, where they were net long.

IG Index reported that it had seen lots of selling of the FTSE today as the 5000 level approached. The UK index was last above 5000 in the second quarter of 2002, before a heavy sell-off that summer.

In other financial markets, Finspreads said that traders were bullish of the pound and of gold. The view seemed to be that the dollar’s recent strength would not persist.

IG said that punters have been long of the gold price from around $420 and the subsequent slide to $415 or so has not shaken them out of that position.

One of the trades where punters appear to have done is in bonds, where many people took long positions in the Eurobund future in the hope that it would rise to 120.00. It did that on Friday on the back of weaker than expected US non-farm payroll figures.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 8th, 2005 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.