Electric scooter startup Bird to go public in £1.6bn SPAC deal May 12, 2021 Bird Rides announced a merger with Switchback II Corp, a blank-cheque company, to go public in a deal that values the electric scooter company at £1.6bn. SPACs are listed companies that use the proceeds from an IPO to buy a private firm and take it public. The scooter rental company said the deal will be [...]
Why you shouldn’t try to time the top of the market May 12, 2021 | City Talk At the end of March, the S&P 500 index of US large companies was valued at 34 times its earnings over the past 12 months. This is more expensive than at the peak of the dotcom bubble at the end of 1999, when the figure was 31 times. And it’s a long way above the [...]
Brexit hit: City of London suffers £2.3 trillion derivatives loss in a single month May 11, 2021 The City of London suffered a loss of £2.3 trillion in a single month in its lucrative derivatives trading market, with Wall Street trading platforms the ones that benefitted. U.S. swap-execution facilities pulled in more trades across euros, pounds and dollars in March while London experienced an exodus compared to last July, while venues in [...]
Hedge fund ExodusPoint takes short position in Deliveroo after disappointing IPO May 11, 2021 Hedge fund ExodusPoint Capital Management has reportedly taken a short position in Deliveroo after the delivery firm’s disastrous market debut. The New York hedge fund’s bet makes up approximately 0.56 per cent of Deliveroo’s shares, Financial News reported. The short position, which could be worth as much as £26m based on its closing price, marks [...]
Myth-Busting: Money printing must create inflation May 11, 2021 | City Talk London ranks ninth on the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index for residential properties. Like in many other countries, property prices in the United Kingdom reached an all-time high in 2020. A global pandemic with sudden mass unemployment should have forced UK citizens to sell their homes, but the furlough policies, stamp duty holidays, and record-low interest rates [...]
Secondary fundraising by retailers nears £2bn as firms eye M&A opportunities May 10, 2021 Listed retail companies have raised nearly £2bn in the past year as they sought to strengthen their balance sheets amid the pandemic. Now, they are starting to eye M&A opportunities. In recent years, listed firms in the UK have relied less on the public markets with private equity firms often considered a more attractive option. [...]
Oil prices rise after critical US pipeline hit by cyber attack May 10, 2021 Oil prices climbed higher this morning after a major cyber attack forced the shutdown of a critical US pipeline, sparking fears of shortages. Brent crude was up 0.6 per cent, at $68.66 a barrel this morning, having risen 1.5 per cent last week. US West Texas Intermediate futures rose 0.5 per cent at $65.24 a [...]
FTSE 250 closes at record high on recovery hopes May 7, 2021 The FTSE 250 mid-cap index closed at a record high this week as hopes of a stronger economic recovery lifted industrial and consumer discretionary stocks. The FTSE 250 index advanced 1.2 per cent, with industrial stocks, including Easyjet, IMI and Pagegroup, rising between 2.7 and 5.1 per cent. The FTSE 100 meanwhile rose 0.76 per cent, [...]
Wall Street opens higher after lacklustre jobs data May 7, 2021 Wall Street opened higher this afternoon, powered by gains for major tech stocks after new data showed US jobs growth fell well short of expectations. The Dow Jones opened 0.2 per cent higher, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up more than 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively. Highly valued tech stocks [...]
SPAC frenzy holds valuable lessons for the UK May 6, 2021 | City Talk The explosive growth in Special Acquisition Purpose Company (SPAC) listings – shell companies listed on the stock exchange with the purpose of ‘reversing-in’ to another company and taking it public by the backdoor, has so far been a purely US phenomenon. However, other markets are now catching on. The value of listings by SPACs grew [...]