On Global Markets

It is, as the saying goes, difficult to make predictions; especially about the future. That may have always been the case but the issue was especially acute in the spring and summer of 2020. The covid pandemic and the associated lock-down and stay-at-home orders designed to constrain the growth of the virus forced widespread changes […] 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the hot new thing. Any firm which can plausibly claim any exposure to the rapidly developing technology has seen the price of its equity soar over the past year as investors seek to cash in. The most booster-ish proponents of AI see it as a game changer for economic growth, ushering […] 

Short-selling has a long history and so too do government bans on actively betting on asset prices falling. Indeed short-selling, and government interventions to prevent it, are just about as old as the very concept of joint-stock companies. The Dutch East India Company, or Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), was established in 1602 by an amalgamation […] 

It is hard to think of two businesses as different as TikTok and US Steel. The later is more than a century old (which I am given to believe counts as a longtime in the United States), employs more than 20,000 workers and is just about as ‘old economy’ as on one can imagine, producing […] 

A few weeks ago, my eldest child made the all too easy mistake of casually asking me “why doesn’t Britain use the Euro?” It would, as she noted, make holidaying in Spain much more straightforward. Twenty minutes later, and after an impromptu tutorial on monetary policy and the business cycle, she presumably regretted asking. Prompted […] 

Around 18 months ago, during the short-lived Prime Ministerial term of Liz Truss, your columnist had lunch with an American asset manager who happened to be in London. His visit was at least well timed for a period of extreme turbulence in the market for British government debt. Wearily he told me that he only […] 

The past year has been good for those who happen to hold US equities. The S&P 500 is up by almost 30% over the last twelve months and by around 7.5% so far this year. Which given that March only just started is a very strong return indeed. Investment commentary though, and the opinion pages […] 

For both the real economy and for financial markets there are few variables as important as the Fed Funds rate. The pricing of stocks and bonds, the direction of the housing market and corporate hiring and investment plans are all ultimately affected, to a greater or lesser degree, by the decisions the Federal Open Market […] 

For more than two years inflation has dominated the macroeconomic policy discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. Few would have expected this as late as 2019. At that point, a decade after the financial and banking crisis of 2007-2009, most discussion of inflation in policy and academic circles – and especially in the Eurozone […] 

Almost two years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched on the 24th February 2022, the fighting continues. The extent and future of Western support for Ukraine, together with questions around the effectiveness of the sanctions regime on Russia, continue to be live political issues in the United States and in parts of Europe. This […]