Good morning
Thanksgiving yesterday and markets were pretty quiet as you’d expect, GBP made good ground with GBPUSD reaching 1.2150 and GBPEUR 1.1665 while EURUSD remained in a fairly tight range around 1.0400. As I type levels are not too different, GBPUSD 1.2110, EURUSD 1.0420, GBPEUR 1.1620.
Very little really to report on the market news front, China is facing more and more lockdowns as Covid cases continue to increase and Japans Tokyo inflation hit the highest level since 1982, USDJPY at 138.65 in a pretty quiet Asian session.
Much of my day yesterday was spent trying to gets my eldest sons Hayya visa approved for Qatar before his flight took off yesterday afternoon. He had decide to go with a friend for a few days at fairly short notice. The friends visa was approved in no time but my sons was not. He tried to check in for his flight which was going via Istanbul, they initially said he couldn’t fly but he pleaded with them to let him on board, to give a few hours extra time for the visa to be approved. They relented and allowed him to go as far as Istanbul.
Meanwhile, I phoned the visa dept on numerous occasions through the day and each time they took a host of information from me about his match tickets, flights, accommodation. Each time I was told it would be approved within a certain time, which ranged from ‘just a few seconds’ to ‘ around 3 hours’ but whatever time period they gave me was clearly just made up.
He landed in Istanbul and had one hour until the next flight to Doha departed, visa still not approved. With twenty five minutes to go we’d given up hope. He wasn’t the only one, some other unfortunate football fans had the same dilemma. Then, out of the blue, his approval came through. I phoned him, he found someone in an office at the airport who worked for the airline, took pity on him ran him to the plane, where he managed to get on board.
I know his trip was short notice but the process is fairly ridiculous. You cannot apply for a visa unless you have purchased tickets or accommodation, which means you must make a substantial financial outlay and are then completely at the mercy of the visa system. He got lucky, very lucky. Anyway he’s arrived in one piece and is there to enjoy some football for a couple of days. His first match is Wales Iran this morning, then England later. Let’s hope England do their part and win this evening after such a traumatic journey.
Elsewhere, like him or loathe him, you must have respect for Cristiano Ronaldo who became the first player to score in five different world cups, helping Portugal to a win in their opening match. That really is some achievement. Tournament favourites Brazil looked pretty good, beating Serbia 2-0, with Richarlison scoring a spectacular goal in the process.
I’ve not forgotten the calendar, there just isn’t anything released today of much interest. Official US holidays are over but today is considered something of an unofficial holiday there as many take the day off to have an extended long weekend. Nothing on the calendar, US as good as out, must be a recipe for quiet markets? Hhhmm, I’m sure I’ve said that before……
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