FTSE 100 breaks 6,000 barrier as vaccine hopes and Fed pledge boost markets May 18, 2020 The FTSE 100 broke through the 6,000-point milestone in a positive start to the week’s trading today, buoyed by hopes of a vaccine and more Federal Reserve stimulus. Easing lockdowns and lower infection rates in Europe infection hotspots Italy, the UK and Spain also boosted London’s blue-chip index. The FTSE 100 closed 4.5 per cent [...]
Heathrow Airport to begin temperature screening trial this week May 17, 2020 Passengers arriving at Heathrow Airport’s terminal two will from Thursday be screened to see if they have high temperatures in an attempt to identify whether they have coronavirus. The airport will implement thermal screening technology in the immigration area, which will automatically scan anyone passing through the terminal. Later, it will also begin to use [...]
FTSE 100 tumbles as investors doubt coronavirus recovery May 14, 2020 The FTSE 100 has fallen dramatically and US stocks have turned lower as doubts about the economic recovery set in following a gloomy speech by the governor of the US Federal Reserve. Britain’s FTSE 100 index dropped 2.8 per cent to finish at 5,741 points. That wiped out all of May’s gains. The mid-cap FTSE [...]
US jobless claims: Nearly 3m more Americans file for unemployment benefits as lockdown slams economy May 14, 2020 Another 2.981m Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending 9 May, according to jobless claims data released today by the US Labor Department. The previous week’s figure was revised higher to 3.18m from 3.17m jobless claims. Since the coronavirus pandemic hit the US two months ago, more than 36m Americans have filed unemployment [...]
Fed chair Jerome Powell warns the US faces extended period” of weak growth May 13, 2020 US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell today warned that the US faces an “extended period” of weak growth and stagnant incomes, and pledged to continue to intervene in the economy, and issued a call for additional fiscal spending. “It will take some time to get back to where we were,” Powell said. “There is a [...]
A UK-US financial services deal is a prize of untold value May 12, 2020 Now the UK and US have commenced trade negotiations, focus should turn to the benefits both parties could achieve through a deal in financial services. Connecting the UK’s and US’s financial markets, and their wider national ecosystems, would be a huge prize. It would give US corporates and consumers the cheapest possible access to the [...]
Message in a Block: “NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue” May 12, 2020 Price Watch Last week saw Bitcoin (BTC) surge to the US$10,000 mark before crashing 15% stabilising at a similar level to my last edition of City AM’s Crypto Insider and, at the time of writing, was trading up at US$8,907.44 / GB£7,241.09; Ethereum (ETH) is at US$188.68 / GB£153.22; Ripple (XRP) is at US$0.1962 / [...]
Bitcoin: Five Factors; One Conclusion, Three Parts May 12, 2020 Bitcoin (BTC) has been labeled as an “uncorrelated asset” since BTC is not directly connected to global GDP, company, revenues, profits (P/E ratios), dividends, and instead, relies on the network effect. For those reasons, the million dollar question is… What are the factors that impact Bitcoin’s price the most and why? The answer to this [...]
Connecting the dots in Europe reveals a continent in decline May 11, 2020 My colleagues at my political risk firm are forced to endure my earlier incarnation as a college professor, as I cannot help but try to instruct them. One of my favourite lectures concerns the absolutely necessary need for a world-class political risk analyst to connect the dots, to clearly link together geopolitical data points that [...]
US jobless claims hit 33m since start of coronavirus lockdown May 7, 2020 US jobless claims now stand at 33m since the American economy entered coronavirus lockdown, new figures released today reveal. The Bureau of Labor statistics show another 3.2m US citizens registered jobless claims over the last week. That is a drop from 3.8m the previous week but the number is still jaw-dropping. It means so-called initial [...]