BoE guides for year-end rate hike – Bluff or real? This week’s cartoon depicts aptly how roughly half of the UK’s economists and market commentators chose to interpret the Bank of England’s (BoE) formal warning that there may well be a rate hike before the end of this year. Not at the end of 2018… Read more »

‘Back to school’ amidst hurricanes, earthquakes and nuclear threats As the summer of 2017 is drawing to an end, we are relieved that much of what could have gone wrong over the summer, did not. As reported over the past weeks, the global economic recovery and stabilisation has made consistent progress, with particularly the Eurozone… Read more »

Bad news, good news This week began (belatedly for us Britons) with bad news and seems to be ending with some good news. I’ll concentrate first on some overseas influences before looking at the UK. Investing in competition: competition or concentration? The retail economic landscape is changing. Amazon, like Google, Facebook and Netflix are leveraging… Read more »

Summer low or summer lull? The past week brought a stabilisation of stock markets, as buyers returned to buy the latest dip. It would seem that despite the looming announcement of the reversal of QE by the US Fed (probably September) investors worldwide continue to have confidence that markets will not collapse as a result…. Read more »

More sellers than buyers Last week had news that felt like it should affect markets. Risks were obvious and it was unsurprising that risk assets came under pressure. As we wrote, it was perhaps more surprising that there was such little reaction. Global monetary policy: not if, but when … The key economic issues this… Read more »