Facebook shops for customers as e-commerce explodes May 22, 2020 | City Talk Do you remember when you needed a new item of clothing and headed to the high-street to browse the shops? Perhaps a few try-ons in different places before making your selection? Coronavirus means that’s obviously not possible at the moment, meaning a choice of either waiting until lockdown passes or going online. More and more [...]
Covid-19: the inescapable truths faced by investors May 22, 2020 | City Talk Investors will need to be more agile than ever as Covid-19 reinforces many of the trends driving the world economy prior to the outbreak. “At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope but that the whole city would be visited; when all that had friends or estates in the country [...]
Why’s everyone talking about Italy (again)? May 22, 2020 | City Talk Italy went into this crisis in a more precarious situation than most. Here Senior European Economist and Strategist Azad Zangana explains why. This is going to be the deepest recession for the eurozone economy in modern times. Just as Italy has been one of the hardest hit nations in the Covid-19 crisis, there are fears [...]
Slumping economy, surging stock market– what’s going on? May 18, 2020 | City Talk While tens of millions of Americans were losing their jobs, the stock market in April produced its best monthly return in over 30 years. We look at what’s behind this apparent disconnect. 36 million Americans filed for unemployment claims over the past eight weeks. US GDP plunged by 4.8 per cent in the first quarter [...]
UK households gloomy about finances as coronavirus crisis hits home May 18, 2020 UK households were slightly more positive about their finances in May than in April, but the month still ranked as one of the most pessimistic since 2009. IHS Markit’s UK household finance index (HFI) – which measures households’ overall perceptions of financial wellbeing – recorded 37.8 in May, up slightly from April’s eight-and-a-half year low [...]
Why staying close to your accountant matters more now May 13, 2020 | City Talk Accountants exist to ensure the accuracy of financial statements and advise how to save money or boost revenue. The coronavirus pandemic, then, with its profound and deepening impact on the economy has jolted the profession like all others. Depending on their role, accountants have been battling to keep on top of the unprecedented flurry of [...]
Exiting lockdown: where’s ready, where’s not, and where risks a second wave? May 13, 2020 | City Talk In collaboration with Schroders’ Data Insights Unit, we’ve looked into the global state of lockdown and compared this with estimated reproduction numbers (R) to identify who is ready to exit lockdown, who is not and who is potentially exiting prematurely. Here’s what we found in summary: While China and Korea were the first to exit [...]
Covid-19: why the tech giants have emerged as winners May 12, 2020 | City Talk While many businesses struggle to survive under the global lockdown, the largest technology companies remain afloat and in some cases are even thriving. Microsoft has reported a surge in usage of its cloud computing service Azure, as millions of people work from home. Amazon is hiring an additional 75,000 workers, on top of the 100,000 [...]
Health and wealth: ‘fit-tech’ steps up the pace May 7, 2020 | City Talk Fitness is far from an obvious winner from government instructions to ‘stay home’. Gyms are firmly closed. People making the most of the ‘one form of exercise’ allowed by the government are the only people in parks. In these inauspicious circumstances, though, there is heightened awareness of personal fitness. In the early days of lockdown, [...]
Are we heading back towards single-use plastic because of coronavirus? May 7, 2020 | City Talk The battle against plastic pollution has rapidly gained momentum in recent years. Our 2018 report – Plastics phase-out: exposure through the value chain – analysed the challenges across sectors beyond the use of carrier bags, microbeads and straws. We concluded that the issue was not just a point of public concern but either an opportunity for forward-thinking [...]