How the UK’s regulatory framework protects P2P investors December 7, 2017 The peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market was established in 2005, when Zopa became the first platform to connect individual lenders directly with borrowers. Since then, the market has evolved rapidly, as have the regulations underpinning investor protection – and this looks set to continue. In the UK, the sector has been overseen by the [...]
Bitcoin futures contracts to launch this month as US regulators give the green light December 1, 2017 CME Group, the world’s biggest exchange owner, and Cboe Global Markets are set to become the first US-regulated exchanges to launch bitcoin futures contracts after they got the all-clear from the US derivatives regulator. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) held “extensive” discussions with the exchanges, and CME and Cboe agreed to put “significant enhancements” [...]
DEBATE: Is Bitcoin too volatile and risky to be considered a serious investment? December 1, 2017 Is Bitcoin too volatile and risky to be considered a serious investment? Dr Savvas P Savouri, chief economist and partner at Toscafund Asset Management, says YES. It is not that I simply don’t like bitcoin. I just don’t get what owning it is supposed to provide. There is no yield, it isn’t backed by any [...]
US Federal Reserve official warns digital currencies like bitcoin could pose financial stability problems if it gains wider use November 30, 2017 A Federal Reserve official has said that digital currencies like bitcoin could pose a threat to financial stability if they pick up wider use. The notoriously volatile cryptocurrency had a rollercoaster ride yesterday, spiking to a fresh high topping $11,000 before slumping 20 per cent, and then picking up the pace again. And Randal Quarles, [...]
Thoughts ahead of the Budget November 20, 2017 This coming week is the second Budget of the year, the first of the new Parliament and the penultimate one before the UK leaves the EU in March 2019. The UK may prolong its tenure in the EU through a yet-to-be-agreed transition deal, but even so we are just over half-way through the Article 50 [...]
Don’t pack up your portfolios yet, Christmas has come early November 14, 2017 With 41 days to go, it seems Christmas has come early this year for many investors. The returns in 2017, at least for equity investors, are staggering. The DAX, a blue chip index consisting of the 30 major German companies, is higher by some 16 per cent since the start of the year. The S&P [...]
The Trump bump: What the US President has meant for markets November 14, 2017 Last week marked one year since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, and in that time US equities have reached almost unprecedented highs. Much has been made of the so-called Trump bump; however, the key question is how much of this positive sentiment can truly be attributed to the policy plans of [...]
New US Fed chair could herald an economic boom November 7, 2017 We now know who US President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve is, and it’s not the incumbent Janet Yellen. This shouldn’t come as a massive surprise. After all, Ms Yellen was nominated to the position by former President Barack Obama. But at the same time, with US economic [...]
Non-farm payroll: The pound has jumped against the dollar after US job openings massively undershot expectations last month (GBP USD) November 3, 2017 The pound has jumped against the dollar after a closely-watched measure of US employment massively undershot expectations. The pound soared past $1.31 in lunchtime trading, rising 0.4 per cent on the day, after US non-farm payrolls showed there were just 261,000 new job openings last month, against expectations of 313,000. However, the figure was a [...]
The $64 trillion question October 25, 2017 How much longer the stock market rally can continue has become the $64 trillion question. For a growing number of market observers, there’s a simple answer: not much longer at all. Markets, they argue, have becoming increasingly detached from economic fundamentals, particularly in Britain. It’s thirty years since Black Monday and while few would suggest [...]