There’s nothing to fear from the latest easing back of Dodd-Frank’s reach October 17, 2018 Shortly after his inauguration as President, Donald Trump pledged to do “a big number” on Dodd-Frank regulations, labelling the post-crisis measures “a disaster” and promising to “kill” parts of the legislation. While the rhetoric was typically Trumpian, the reality has proven to be somewhat more modest. Nonetheless, a change in the White House's direction of [...]
LBMA gold conference to be held in Shenzhen to reflect China’s dominance October 17, 2018 The global precious metals authority will host its annual conference in China next year to capitalise on the country's status as the world's largest gold producer Ahead of its annual conference in Boston later this month the London Bullion Market Association – which set standards for gold and silver trading – told City A.M. next year's [...]
Veteran investor Terry Smith’s new Smithson Investment Trust breaks records with £822m launch October 17, 2018 Veteran investor Terry Smith's new small and mid cap investment trust has raised £822.5m, breaking records for the UK's biggest trust launch. The Smithson Investment Trust initially targeted £250m before more than doubling its goal to £600m with the option to increase to £900m, and has knocked Neil Woodford's Patient Capital Trust off the top spot. It will start trading [...]
Oil prices fall after US crude inventories jump by six million barrels October 17, 2018 Oil prices continued to fall yesterday after US crude inventories rose more than expected. Brent crude oil slid to $79.75 as the price drop kickstarted by last week’s global equity sell off spilled over for another day. Prices had rallied briefly on data suggesting US crude stockpiles had dropped last week but government data showing [...]
Sterling falls on weaker UK inflation data as food and drink prices drop October 17, 2018 Inflation slowed in September as the prices of meat and chocolate fell, the first fall in the price of statisticians' basket of goods since April. Consumer price index (CPI) inflation fell from 2.7 per cent in August to 2.4 per cent in September, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said today. The relatively steep fall [...]
Can we innovate better outside the EU? Economic lessons from the Nobel prize winner October 17, 2018 Gordon Brown’s time as chancellor will be remembered for many things. A sense of humour would be conspicuously absent from this list. But he provoked a great deal of mirth unintentionally in a speech shortly before the 1997 General Election on the theme of “post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory”. Read more: US duo win the Nobel [...]
Economist Hernando de Soto: ‘Our systems of representation are broken’ October 17, 2018 Hernando de Soto has dedicated much of his life to trying to help the world's poorest countries develop to the level of advanced economies, but now he is wondering if Western nations need to re-examine how we think about government. De Soto is one of the world’s most prominent development economists, thanks to the central [...]
African miner hires former BHP and British Airways board member ahead of float October 16, 2018 South African phospate miner Kropz will go public by the end of the month and has appointed former BHP board member and JP Morgan exec Lord Renwick as chairman. Kropz announced yesterday it would list on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) by the end of October. The plant nutrient producer hoped its IPO [...]
The emergence of micropayments and impact of cryptocurrencies October 16, 2018 | Sponsored Micropayments, generally understood as payments with a value less than £10, predate the advent of the Internet as they were initially conceived to pay the various copyright holders for compound work. Thereafter, several systems were proposed and developed in the mid-to-late nineties, all of which ultimately had little commercial success. A key problem that prevented [...]
Why a Canada-style Brexit deal is unlikely October 16, 2018 Brexit is now less than six months away. Yet somehow, a deal feels further away than it did just a few weeks ago. The stakes are fairly high. Models estimate that GDP will shrink by much as eight per cent. Some of the damage has already been done via the corrosive effects of uncertainty and anticipation of a [...]