As readers are no doubt aware, OPEC recently agreed a production cut from its August output of 33.2 mb/d (million barrels per day) to a new target of between 32.5 mb/d to 33.0 mb/d. With OECD oil inventories expected at 3,090 million barrels by the end of this year, the agreed production cut is unlikely…
Getting into the second home market is the Holy Grail for baby boomers. Having a buy to let has come easy to them, as they’ve paid off their own mortgages and have had ample income in the decade before retirement to pump money into property. However, it is not just the baby boomers that have…
With the gaggle of visitors to my Spanish lair abating with summer, I’ve had a lot of time for thinking lately. It’s been a quiet time for markets, seemingly, but there have been opportunities, some of which we’ve taken, and others which we outright missed. But you only need one or two to stay ahead…
The world of central banking continues to delight. This particular niche has delivered the greatest advances in economic knowledge, outputting refined new tools to improve the way our economy works. They redefined the zero lower bound, making it possible for borrowers to get a return on their debts; they turned the time preference upside down;…
Savers should brace themselves for more pain as the Bank of England’s latest interest rate cut filters through the system and inflation begins to creep higher. The Bank of England cut its base rate in half in August, from 0.5% to 0.25%, and expanded its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme by £60 billion to £435 billion.…
The remainiacs control the media Do not underestimate the breadth and depth of the recusant remainiacs. Their mouthpieces are the BBC, the Economist and the increasingly ludicrous Financial Times. But they have extensive influence propagated by Church of England vicars, luvvies, much of the teaching profession as well as trendy entrepreneurs and a throng of…
The European politicians who perpetually nudge the United Kingdom to get on with it (that is, to trigger Article 50 and to set out, point-by-point, the definitive post-Brexit blueprint) are like junior chess players who huff and puff because their opponent spends too much time making his first move. They can’t understand that considered meditation…
At a time when investors need to pay European corporations for the privilege of lending them money, the degree of financial madness should have reached level 100. Governments around the world excused themselves from leading their own sluggish economies towards healthier states and central banks surpassed all known boundaries in replacing them on such a…
If you want to figure out what’s likely to happen in the next eight months, a good start is to try to understand what’s been happening over the last eight years – since the collapse of Lehman and the beginning of the Global Financial Crisis. Understanding what a portfolio should look like to cope with…
It was bound to happen – and now it has. India’s love affair with technology and e-commerce has spawned an explosion in “fintech”. We can define fintech as digital technology businesses that compete against (and disrupt) – or sometimes support – the activities of established financial institutions. Businesses in the fintech space serve both customers…
