Financial markets have been on an impressive run since Donald Trump was elected in November. The S&P 500 is up 10.7%, the Dow is up 13.1% and the MSCI World (which is a proxy for developed markets) is up 9.9%. Trump’s promises in terms of tax cuts, infrastructure spending, protectionism for US industries, repeal of…
Ready. Aim. Fire! The notorious Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon (2007) was “triggered” by the United Kingdom last night when Prime Minister May signed off a historic letter to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council. This was delivered by hand by Sir Tim Barrow, our man in Brussels, at 12:20 BST this afternoon.…
Another Master Investor done! A huge crowd, impressive companies, great speakers and an engaged audience. Well done Swen and team! I must say I always feel wrung out afterwards, as it takes weeks to prepare my speech and develop my theme. Luckily, this year, I think we are onto a new money fountain centred on…
While Europe is recovering from the financial and sovereign crises at a very moderate pace, Iceland seems to have completely reversed one of the worst banking crises ever seen, where three banks with assets in excess of 10x the country’s GDP suddenly collapsed. Almost 10 years after the peak of the crisis, when the central…
Last week we witnessed some interesting global developments that will pave the way forward: populism was somewhat defeated in the Netherlands, the FED hiked its key rate by another 25 basis points, an ECB official hinted at policy normalisation, and the BoE appeared more hawkish than many expected. After more than a decade of sluggish…
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…
