Okay, a few things did happen. But my point is that the major government bond markets and the US Dollar-Euro-Sterling exchange rates hardly shifted, and the heavyweight bourses cruised higher in a week when we were all braced for turbulence. Article 50; IndyRef2; the Dutch elections; the indictment of Monsieur Fillon; a new Trump travel…
Join Huddle and Master Investor in a live Q&A Twitter chat on Tuesday 21st March from 1pm. Send your questions to @masterinvestor and @HuddleCapital using the hashtag #AskHuddle Huddle Capital is a new business-to-business lending platform that aims to match small to medium-sized (SME) businesses that have excess cash reserves with other SMEs looking for…
Mr Hammond’s first and last spring budget was a cosh delivered to the growing army of the self-employed (white van drivers to barristers) and micro-company directors (interior designers to marketing consultants), concealed in a velvet glove of fiscal reassurance. The good news is that the British economy is still relatively dynamic relative to its peers;…
Governments in future will be obliged to move from taxing income to taxing assets, not least in the UK. Readers with net worth equal to the value of a nice South London semi should prepare themselves for stiff wealth taxes – particularly on property – within the next five years. Especially if the Tories regain…
The tone used by the US Federal Reserve to express its attitude towards monetary policy has changed significantly since last December. With the US economy operating near full employment, the emergency stance that guided Ben Bernanke into unchartered territory has now been completely replaced by a more hawkish stance, where the doom and gloom has…
After three years of subdued performance, there are once again signs of life for Emerging Market equities, including Brazil. By the end of 2015, the main Brazilian stock market, the Bovespa, had seen five years of annual negative performance – the longest in dollar terms since 1983 – as the index became a lightning rod…
In general, taxpayers try to minimise their contributions to the government budget, either by optimising their tax rate or through trying to delay payments wherever they can. But something strange seems to be happening in Sweden. The country seems to have been gripped by some form of mania that has led the taxpayer to overpay…
In his final days as ruthless EU dictator, the Leader made a series of cataclysmic blunders, based largely on a misreading of the strategic situation. These led to his inevitable downfall[i]. “Mein Führer. The Russian delicatessen chain, Azbuka Vkusa, has breached the gates of Berlin. They are bearing down on our Aldi and Lidl divisions.…
The future of politics This week I want to talk politics without getting (party) political. Like many others, as an analyst and investor, post-Brexit and Trump, and with Marine Le Pen likely to win the first round in the French presidential election on 23 April, I have been trying to figure out what it all…
Well, I’m on the road again. This time, I’m travelling around the US, in part researching for the new book, which I hope will be out in early May, but will definitely be featured in my talk at Master Investor 2017 on March 25th. The other part of the trip is to observe the US…
