"There's Gold in Them Thar Hills"
---Nigel Beynon EDITOR-IN-CHIEF City-Watch.net

 

MARKETS: Equity markets in the UK and US are pretty quiet so far this year, but more new issues are planned. Firms like Poundland are coming to the market. Silver and Gold are both up quite a bit, but Copper and Oil are down. This suggests that economies are still weak, which may explain why central banks, such as the Bank of England, are trying to keep interest rates low.

 

STOCKS: In 1848 the first California Gold Rush started in Sutter's Creek. About 100 miles away a new one is happening in Mountain View, just outside San Francisco. This is part of the world famous 'Silicon Valley'; home to firms like Google. Some of these companies have awesome financial power, such as Facebook, which is buying another Valley firm WhatsApp for $19bn. WhatsApp has 450 million active users and was founded as recently as 2009. That's a very productive 5 years work! The founders previously worked for Yahoo - another valley firm. So the old-timer's advice no longer applies; the Gold's no longer in the hills ... it"s in the Valley.