Quindell announced today that the privately owned asset manager, Toscafund, the company founded by Martin Hughes in 2000 and specialising in absolute return products, had bought 24.3 million shares representing 5.3% of the company.

After a 6% fall in the price of Brent Crude yesterday to just under $53 a barrel, it is down yet another 3% to $51.50 a barrel

The euro has continued its slide against the US dollar, recently trading at 1.195 to the dollar, a nine year low. In May last year the euro was trading as high as 1.39 to the dollar.

It proved to be a fairly subdued end to the trading year with the US markets moving down on the final session of 2014 but showing strong gains for the year as a whole. The S&P 500 finished at 2,059, a 1% decline on the day and an 11.4% gain for the index during the year. The narrower based Dow Industrials finished at 17,823, below the key 18,000 market and ahead 7.5% for 2014.

There has been plenty of focus on the plunging oil price this year, with Brent Crude currently trading at $60 a barrel, but the 50% fall in the price of iron ore to $67 a tonne, the lowest level for 5 years, shouldn’t be forgotten.

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.

Today Afren’s shares are trading at 55p compared with the 35p level last week, a rise of up to 16% on the day, as the company announces this morning that it has received a highly preliminary approach from SEPLAT Petroleum Development Company plc regarding a possible combination with Afren.

Shares of wearable fitness specialist Fitbug (FITB) has been a little subdued of late after an amazing run that pushed them from 0.4p to 26p in little more than weeks after deals with Samsung, Target and Sainsbury.

Brent Crude is currently down around half a dollar to $59.5 compared with $115 in June. The implications for small and mid cap oil shares has been dramatic with their share prices in free fall over recent weeks. With the price of oil so stable for so long at over $100 a barrel, most companies were developing projects on the basis that the price per barrel was unlikely to drop below $80, never mind $60, levels last seen in  [read more →]