How do markets fail? Blame visible hands July 28, 2017 | City Talk Markets are less perfect than commonly assumed. In the past, I have discussed their inability to price unknowns; the blindness of the assumptions that underlie market activity; that the implicit presumption that market fungibility bears consequences; and that markets are not systemic. How else do markets fail? They have visible hands, not invisible ones. Markets [...]
The UK’s 12 most shorted stocks revealed: Carillion tops the list, with several household names filling in the ranks July 25, 2017 It's not a list which many corporates would be happy to top, but Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management has today released a ranking of the 12 most shorted stocks in the UK. Construction company Carillion topped the list, with 27.2 per cent of its equity having been shorted. High street names such as Debenhams, Marks and [...]
Connection Capital raises £8m from private investors for Volkswagen and Lloyds Bank litigation funder Therium July 19, 2017 Connection Capital, a specialist syndicator of investment funds from private investors, has raised £8m for litigation funder Therium. This largest ever fundraise from Connection Capital, and its third commitment to Therium, will bring the total invested by the firm in litigation funding to £16m. Read more: Woodford-backed litigation funder Burford Capital stands to profit from [...]
Initial Coin Offerings: Are they a solution to Bitcoin woes? July 11, 2017 | City Talk Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have taken the fintech world by storm the last few months. ICOs are tokens, typically based on the technology underlying Bitcoin’s more versatile cousin Ethereum, that entrepreneurs sell to investors in exchange for cryptocurrency – typically either Bitcoin or Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network. Interestingly, these tokens do not [...]
The pros and cons of crowdfunding July 6, 2017 People are divided about crowdfunding. While many investors and businesses see it as invaluable, it often comes with a number of caveats which shouldn’t be ignored. Equity and debt-based crowdfunding methods are often used by entrepreneurs looking to start or develop their business. However, they differ in that equity-based lets you swap money for shares [...]
What will happen to sterling if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour wins the General Election? We asked the experts May 26, 2017 Labour has surged in the polls in the last fortnight, closing the Conservative party lead to as little as five points. The pound moved in the opposite direction against the dollar as traders started to consider the previously unthinkable: a Labour General Election victory. Before everyone gets too excited, it should be remembered that Labour [...]
Fintech: How does Blockchain fit into the future of financial services? May 11, 2017 | City Talk Blockchain is an often discussed, rarely understood topic. To get some perspective on the current thinking regarding blockchain, I had a discussion with Jennifer Qin, Deloitte’s lead partner for its investment management business in the Asia-Pacific region. Qin is a frequent speaker on blockchain technology. Larry Cao, CFA: What is blockchain all about? Jennifer Qin: [...]
Opec cuts are unlikely to lift oil prices above $60 a barrel this year, Apicorp report says March 20, 2017 Oil prices have edged lower by more than one per cent today while a new report suggests Opec's production cuts are unlikely to bump prices above $60 a barrel this year. Global benchmark Brent crude fell as low as $51.01 a barrel this morning while West Texas Intermediate slipped to $47.84. The new lows come on [...]
Investment manager Downing plans £100m float to launch new micro-cap trust March 20, 2017 An investment manager has announced plans to raise £100m through a fund float on the London Stock Exchange. Asset management firm Downing today announced plans to launch Downing Strategic Micro-Cap Investment Trust in May through a listing on the main market. The company will target investments in publicly-quoted UK companies with market capitalisations of less than [...]
Three charts showing why we remain very happy to hold UK banks March 20, 2017 | City Talk Investors have tended to steer clear of the UK’s big banks since the financial crisis bit in 2008, when share prices plummeted and Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) had to be bailed out with taxpayer money. As we tend to do, on our Value Perspective blog, we took a different view – arguing [...]