Economics & Markets

On 08 July George Osborne delivered the first budget from a Conservative government since Ken Clark stood at the House of Commons despatch box in March 1997. Although many of Mr Osborne’s measures had been well trailed, the final coup de grâce – the introduction of a mandatory Living Wage – came as a surprise. This will have important implications on both government finances and corporate profitability in the UK which I would like to unpack here.

Here’s a picture of a very casual bloke on a roof opposite my house on the ‘mobi’ to his ‘Bezzie Mate’. Climb up your roof too, and have a look around. What do you see? He’ll be seeing a lot of cranes. There’s plenty of building going on. So you wouldn’t expect the Construction sector…

After a roller coaster weekend in EU politics, financial markets opened Monday with increased volatility but in certain ways disregarded the political and economic implications of what happened during the weekend. The Greeks said “no” to a new bailout, Yanis Varoufakis was dismissed, the dra(ch)ma is back on the table; but still investors don’t seem…

The FTSE 100 fell 50.10 points to 6,535.68. The FTSE 250 tumbled 170.18 points to 17,443.28. The FTSE All Share decreased by 28.49 points to 3,573.98. The FTSE AIM All Share finished 5.82 points lower at 758.15. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has once again voted to hold rates at 0.5%. The scale…

The FTSE 100 rose 54.34 points to 6,486.55. The FTSE 250 tumbled 106.79 points to 17,106.14. The FTSE All Share increased by 20.01 points to 3,539.89. The FTSE AIM All Share finished 5.98 points lower at 744.23. George Osborne set out a new budget today with key changes including the minimum wage for over 25s…

Broadly speaking I think that anyone who has voted for a Labour government over the years since the war has become increasingly disillusioned with what they’ve got in return, and I think that’s set to continue because the whole idea of the Labour party is now obsolete – Socialism has outlived its usefulness and relevance.…

I was looking at some photos of a long past trip. I’m in hardly any of them because I took them. Remember that? Nowadays, of course, it’s the opposite. Probably a majority of photos, certainly on social media, are of the person posting them, and more often than not, ‘selfies’. I suppose the correct word…

If we look at the European indices then we could perhaps conclude that the crash has indeed started, I look at some FTSE share prices and notice there is hardly any buying will left when the share price drops. But, if we look at the DJIA we are not really that much lower from its…

With its half year results announced last week, it is a good time to look at the fortunes of Ocado, somewhat of a black sheep in a much beleaguered sector. Like the rest of the sector, a big fall from the end of February last year (in Ocado’s case from £6.24 at its peak to a…

One of the key things in trading is to be able to anticipate what may happen, because preparation is everything. Not every signal will develop into an expected outcome, but once they start lining up you can be increasingly more confident that something is going to happen. We’ve been in a bull market for some…