The fall of BHS has triggered an almost hysterical reaction amongst the leftist commentariat, not because they ever shopped there (they go to Zara and Gap), but because they think it provides first-hand evidence of how the system leaves honest occupational pension scheme members in the lurch. I don’t know how many times the figure…
I feel sorry for Janet Yellen, I really do. Since coming to office as chairman of the FED in 2014 she has been unable to do what she knows must be done: hike interest rates. But her predecessor Ben Bernanke flooded the market with so much money and pushed interest rates so low that every…
What a week that was! Her Majesty the Queen turned ninety. The Bard passed away exactly 400 years ago. St. George’s Day last Saturday coincided with the Master Investor Show, which was a sell-out. And then Obama turned up, wished the Queen Happy Birthday, told us to get to the back of the queue and…
As seen in the latest issue of Master Investor Magazine. An Interview with Patrick Birley, CEO of ISDX Swen Lorenz: Patrick, you run the ISDX, which when spelled out stands for ICAP Securities and Derivatives Exchange. In a nutshell, what does ISDX do? Patrick Birley: We are a fully regulated UK based stock exchange offering…
Nahendra Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister who came to power with the explicit objective of claiming India’s place amongst the world’s great powers. He was determined from the outset to put diplomacy to the service of India’s economic development, to strengthen ties between India’s increasingly influential diaspora and the motherland, and to take…
Let us think the unthinkable and bring the UK steel industry to the market and make a profit for the taxpayer. The market could do with a big cyclical play… Government in a changing and unpredictable world should be pragmatic. I say that in relation to the future of steel production in the UK. The FTSE…
FinTech is the new buzzword in London, and for good reason – we’re beginning to see how technology will be leveraged in financial services. FinTech is already showing us how to improve financial products and the user experience, but it’s also creating a level playing field between retail investors and the rich institutions. So far,…
The traditional perception is that bonds are a safer investment than equities. But is this a fallacy? Over the short term equities incur in a huge price risk; but over the long term bonds may very well struggle to perform as expected. In times of extreme central bank intervention, this issue regains life and needs…
The Hydro Carbon gnomes in Switzerland! Have we seen the bottom of the oil market and how strong should we expect it to get from here? Only madmen (and mad women, of course), charlatans and economists believe that they can forecast oil prices. If they could, it would be a perfect (as in ‘perfect market’…
We live in such great times! A few decades ago we were fighting hard to increase competition among private companies. The EU, for example, was built on free market principles. Today, the task has been so flawlessly accomplished that the same principles have been transposed to the central banking business. Who could ever have imagined…
