Robinhood raises $1bn from investors amid GameStop frenzy January 29, 2021 Trading platform Robinhood is raising an infusion of more than $1bn from its investors, having been strained by high volumes of trading this week. On Thursday, the company was forced to stop customers from buying stocks that were heavily traded, such as struggling videogame retailer GameStop. According to a New York Times report, the company [...]
Euromoney revenues drop as pandemic damages events unit January 28, 2021 Financial information company Euromoney has suffered lower first quarter revenues as its events business was hit by lockdowns, the company revealed today. Euromoney’s quarterly revenue fell to £78.7m, a 20 per cent drop from the £99.2m reported a year earlier. Group events revenue of £8.6m was just 30 per cent of the same period last [...]
Are any stock markets cheap going into 2021? January 27, 2021 | City Talk Where is the value in stock markets today? This is a difficult question to wrestle with. At face value, the bad news is that everywhere looks to be at nosebleed-red levels of expensiveness. Of the 25 measures in our regular stock market valuation grid below (five markets and five measures for each), 16 are more [...]
Taper Tantrum 2: is there a sequel in the making? January 26, 2021 | City Talk Sequels – occasionally they’re better (The Godfather Part II), but most of the time they’re worse. Often far worse (Jaws: The Revenge). As investors and economists look for the next market risks after the pandemic, some are now expecting a follow-up to 2013’s blockbusting Taper Tantrum. This sequel could even be coming to (trading) screens [...]
Has Covid-19 changed the conversation around sustainable investing? January 22, 2021 | City Talk Sustainable investing is not just about a company’s financial success, but how it achieves that success. The importance of considering all stakeholders is intrinsic to the approach. Those stakeholders range from employees to shareholders to wider society. The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on how companies treat their employees, protect their customers, and help [...]
How finding the quality within value was crucial in 2020 January 20, 2021 | City Talk There are two broad areas of value in the UK market, financials and commodities, that in aggregate make up around a third of the FTSE All Share index. Within this, however, there are vast differences in both quality and performance. (Please see the end of this article for a glossary of terms). 2020 was a [...]
Market confidence is only artificially low, says IW Capital CEO January 19, 2021 The impact of Covid has been continually unpredictable since the first ripples in January of last year to the third lockdown of this year. Despite this, there is plenty of reason to feel optimistic about 2021. Both historical evidence and current sentiment point to a period of boom after months of gloom, according to Luke [...]
An increase in distressed investment expected January 18, 2021 | City Talk In autumn 2020 we conducted our Restart Capital Survey of over 500 SME business and over 100 investors. There was a feared wave of corporate insolvencies with 35% of the business respondents expecting to be out of business within 12 months (and 43% of medium sized enterprises). 84% of the business respondents considered themselves distressed [...]
Why climate change is creating a 1929 moment January 15, 2021 | City Talk The battle against Covid-19 has been brutal, inflicting a terrible cost on society. But it will be overcome; scientific endeavour will prevail. Looking decades ahead, my greater concern is climate change. By 2050 we may find the effects of the pandemic will be dwarfed by the consequences of unchecked global warming. The future actions of [...]
Why everyone’s talking about hydrogen January 14, 2021 | City Talk What is all the excitement about? Renewable energy can and will decarbonise power generation. Renewable energy and batteries can and will decarbonise the automotive sector. But these technologies will not be as viable for aviation, shipping, commercial vehicles, steel or fertiliser manufacturing. In all of these vital industries it looks as though hydrogen will be [...]