Obama’s Brexit threat is a problem for Leave April 25, 2016 Did you catch the Obama show? You can hardly have missed the buildup, even if you didn’t tune in for the killer press conference where the leader of the free world told its largest foreign investor that we’d be banished to the back of the line if we came looking for a post-Brexit trade deal. The [...]
Obama’s desperate EU claims say more about Remain failures than Brexit truth April 25, 2016 Barack Obama is not a stupid man. So it is interesting when he says a patently stupid thing. The President, who remains far more popular in the UK than in the US, was called upon by an increasingly desperate David Cameron to add his two cents to the EU referendum debate. Despite what a number [...]
Why lawyers would be worse off outside the EU – despite a short-term Brexit boost April 25, 2016 I spoke last week at a Brexit debate hosted by Thomson Reuters; the impact on bankers and lawyers was the subject of discussion. More specifically, the question was “would Brexit be bad news for these two industries?” The poll at the end of this lively debate showed around 72 per cent of the audience thinking [...]
I’m standing for London mayor to give a voice to our great city’s hard-working Polish community April 25, 2016 I am running for mayor of London to provide a strong voice to the Polish community, because I believe that they do not get the credit they deserve for the significant contribution they make to this great city. I want to challenge the widespread rhetoric, pushed by Nigel Farage and Ukip in particular, that Polish [...]
As April draws to a close, should investors follow the old dictum to sell in May and go away? April 25, 2016 Richard Stone, chief executive of The Share Centre, says Yes. The adage says “sell in May and go away, come back on St Leger Day”. Investors should generally take a long-term view of investing and weather short-term volatility. However, with some potential short-term causes of increased volatility – continued concerns over China, difficulty reaching agreement [...]
Why the Investment Association’s definition of the Equity Income sector will leave funds sailing towards dangerous waters April 24, 2016 Over the last few years, the FTSE All Share’s running yield has been widely discussed. The subject is important because the major qualification for existing within the Investment Association (IA) Equity Income sector is the provision of an income yield 10 per cent above that of the FTSE All Share, on a rolling three-year basis. While the rules are clear, [...]
Disposing of Royal Bank of Scotland: It’s the only way the chancellor can cut borrowing April 22, 2016 Whilst George Osborne was sipping some Chateau Lynch Bages 2000 as HM Government was entertaining President Obama, he surely must have been ruminating as to how he can get the UK'S borrowing requirement down from the unacceptable level of 83.5 per cent of GDP. He has tried desperately hard in recent years to achieve this goal, [...]
Competition warnings over OnTheMarket were pretty much inevitable April 22, 2016 Anyone with even a passing interest in technology and its history could have predicted this one: just as the Luddites were eventually overwhelmed by power looms, online property portal OnTheMarket was destined to stumble. And lo, yesterday it came to pass: the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) effectively took a sledgehammer to the site’s business [...]
Ignore the scaremongers: Chinese capital flight is no reason to panic April 22, 2016 China's economic growth is decelerating. By our estimation, it has more than halved over the last five years. We believe that this is for the better, but many are fearful that we are on the verge of a crisis. They are pointing to recent capital flight as evidence – emerging market economic crises of the [...]
Inconsistency versus insincerity: Why this US presidential race leaves me utterly miserable April 22, 2016 I know I’m not the only person turned off by politicians’ sound-bites, but I understand why they do it. Thanks to focus groups, A/B testing, and data analysis, campaigns know which words and phrases will have the greatest impact; and repetition works. But the levels of absurdity the current US presidential race has reached should [...]