Some better news for the US economy The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced a revision to their US savings data illustrating as in this chart sourced from Schroders, that savings have been drawn down far less than previously calculated. Source: Schroders The BLS also releases its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey […]

Bond Villains Rising government bond yields in North America, Europe and the UK were the result of the hawkish rhetoric from their respective central banks despite the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England opting to pause hiking official interest rates.  The impending shutdown (subsequently averted but only for a few weeks) of the US […]

Unhappy Hour News that York-based Stonegate Group, the largest pub group in the UK, is going to introduce ‘surge’ pricing at busy times, caused a bit of a furore amongst regular drinkers.  It probably also says something about pricing power and the need/desire to claw back some of the increased staffing cost in a tight […]

Summer’s Back & A Game of Three Halves?  Having endured a damp July and August, September has started with a few days of glorious weather which look set to last a bit longer.  Bad luck on all the schoolchildren that have to look out of the classroom window while their parents might get to enjoy […]

Better News, Softer Markets With the exception of China, where deflation appeared, there was better news on lower inflation. However, that did little to help the mood of financial markets as most asset classes gave back much of July’s positive delivery. Downgrading The catalyst for a rise in bond yields and a fall in equity […]

Ups & Downs & A Soft Landing?   Source: Wikicanadashawn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons  July was a month when US and European interest rates went up and inflation continued its descent from recent highs but remained some way off target.  The Bank of England, likely to follow suit with its own 0.25% increase […]

At Last The name of a great track by Etta James but financial markets, central bankers and politicians breathed a sigh of relief that US inflation, as reported for June on July 12th, showed a better than expected, much-needed improvement.  The following charts sourced from Bloomberg illustrate the improvement. Source: Bloomberg The better than expected […]

AI (All In) As the half year came to an end, many will have noticed that any stock that can demonstrate that it will benefit from Artificial Intelligence (AI), has had a good run.   June was a muddling month that ended on a positive note but suffered bouts of negativity, notably after disappointing inflation data […]

US debt ceiling negotiations became the focal point of financial news and dominated the thoughts of asset allocators worldwide during May. Whilst historical precedent indicated that these discussions would ultimately be resolved without major consequences, the evolving status of the negotiations created market distortions and added to the growing uncertainty. Investors anxiously followed the ebb […]

Between a Bank and a Hard Place  The UK Bank Rate was raised by the Bank of England by 0.25% to 4.5% as expected in the face of recent inflation figures.  Despite expectations, the UK economy grew by 0.1% in Q1 2023. Although this might not sound like much, it confounded the doomsayers – although […]

Dancing on the Ceiling Sadly, this article has nothing to do with Lionel Richie’s classic track of the above name.  What we’re actually referring to is the game of who blinks first in the process of raising the debt ceiling in the US so the budget can be financed. This authorisation has to go through […]

Initial Volatility  SVB, CS, CDS, Etc  Before March, few people had heard of Silicon Valley Bank.  By the end of the month, many investors were overwhelmed by news items referring to its acronym, SVB.  By month-end, SVB had become part of First Citizen Bank, no doubt also known as FCB.  HSBC stepped into buy the […]