Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
The focus in March inevitably turned towards the UK Budget â delivered by Chancellor George Osborne on March 18th â and the forthcoming General Election, with the two main parties currently running neck and neck in the opinion polls.
Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
At last! A full house, ladies and gentlemen. For the first time since we started this bulletin all the major world stock markets moved resolutely upwards in February. Some by a little, some by a lot and some â step forward the UK â finally breaking through a previous high from the last century.
Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
The great thing about writing this bulletin is that you make a note of something which looks hugely significant around the middle of the month and then something else comes along which makes it pale into insignificance. In this case the âhugely significantâ event was the fall in UK inflation â what came along was the Greek election result and victory for Syriza, the far-left coalition under Alexis Tsipras.
Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
Traditionally, December is a âslow newsâ month. Like August, the great and the good spend a large part of the month on holiday and world events supposedly move slowly, if at all.
Not so in 2014 â There was the Autumn Statement in the UK, the tumbling world oil price, the gloom over the Eurozone, the snap presidential election in Greece, rapid growth in the US economy, rapid growth in the Chinese stock market, much less than rapid growth in Japan as the economy contracted and there were the first signs of recession in Russia.
Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
November saw the G20 group of world leaders meeting in Canberra. The summit was notable for the new sport invented by the great and good: a bizarre game of musical chairs in order to avoid being photographed sitting next to Vladimir Putin!
Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
In all the time weâve been writing these market commentaries itâs difficult to remember a more turbulent month than October 2014.
Throughout the summer we have been writing about events in the Ukraine and the worries that conflict posed for Europe. Fortunately we now have a ceasefire in the region â and Russia and the Ukraine have just concluded a deal (brokered by the EU) for supplies of gas to resume. Just as well, last week the temperature in Kiev dropped to five degrees and 60% of Government buildings were without any heat.
