Netflix fall a sign investors are looking again for fundamentals April 20, 2022 When the electric carmaker Rivian listed on Wall Street last year, it was briefly valued at more than Anheuser-Busch. The latter, most famously, produces Budweiser; a beer that sells in great quantities for more than it costs to produce. It is a functioning, well understood business, and despite the best efforts of governments we remain [...]
Why the egg wars show Bank should be no chicken April 19, 2022 It may lack some of the nautical drama of the Cod Wars but the egg wars – fought not between Iceland and the UK but supermarkets and their suppliers – is perhaps going to have a longer-lasting impact, at least for those of us who aren’t Reykjavik-based pescatarians. In short, a combination of input costs [...]
Non-EU migration increase paints a positive picture – but not the whole story April 19, 2022 At points over the past few years – amid apocalyptic warnings of Brexit’s impact on the capital and then Covid-19’s actual impact on our streets – there have been moments when you’d be forgiven for wondering about the future prosperity of the Square Mile and the wider London area. As life has returned to our [...]
Today’s youngsters have more reason than most to complain April 14, 2022 There are few generations who do not think their ancestors had it better; similarly few who think the next have it harder. Those under 35 or so, born in Britain, may have a more reasonable case than most. Many of them left school or graduated into the teeth of a global financial crisis, from which [...]
Extinction Rebellion miss the point: the City is at the heart of climate fight April 12, 2022 They may not be everybody in the City’s cup of tea, but Extinction Rebellion certainly liven up the place. Yesterday’s protest outside the Lloyd’s building by lunchtime had a party atmosphere: the sight of a broker or two enjoying a takeaway pint in the sun listening to the group’s band was probably a Lime Street [...]
A good time to re-assess the value of ESG investing April 11, 2022 No City earnings call, annual report, or even chief executive interview is now complete without a mention of what a firm is doing to meet its ‘ESG goals.’ At times this has bordered on the ludicrous: Terry Smith, the legendary investor, found a warm audience to his critique of Unilever attempting to define the purpose [...]
Giving crypto the ministerial seal of approval comes with responsibilities April 4, 2022 As Rishi Sunak is finding out, value can be volatile. Last year he was the odds-on favourite to replace Boris Johnson in Number Ten, popular with Tory party members and (for a Cabinet minister, at least) the public at large. Alas this year, though Sunak has done very little differently, his stock isn’t quite flying [...]
Mindset shift may be needed to embrace the riskiest but most rewarding new ideas April 4, 2022 Since the UK’s departure from the European Union, we have not been shy of reviews into the future of the City of London – and how to ensure the Square Mile is the most competitive financial centre in the world. Chief amongst those are the Hill Review into listing rules, and the Kalifa review into [...]
Another bad day for Barclays but it’s Staley’s shadow that looms March 28, 2022 No conspiracy, just cock-up. That seems to be the conclusion to draw from Barclays’ statement yesterday that it had managed to overshoot its regulator-agreed limits with all the reckless abandon of a student enjoying the first week of university. In this case it was the selling of complex securities rather than discount vodka shots, but [...]
Interventions have merit, but government mustn’t get hooked on meddling March 28, 2022 The drumbeat towards another Sunakian save-the-day package has begun, it seems. It is barely weeks since the Chancellor’s first energy market intervention, a devillishly complicated scheme of rebates and discounts to reduce the pain of higher energy prices. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now added further upward pressure on those same costs, and it is [...]
