London should not overlook SPACs, former LSE boss says February 24, 2021 The former London Stock Exchange boss, Xavier Rolet, has declared London should consider blank-cheque vehicles following a surge of activity in the US. A number of big names, including Rolet himself, have jumped on the SPAC craze which is sweeping the US. SPACs – special acquisition companies- are created to raise capital through a public [...]
Apple acquisitions: Tech giant buys a company every three to four weeks February 24, 2021 As the giants of Silicon Valley jostle for pole position in the escalating technology arms race, mergers and acquisitions are often the name of the game. But the scale of Big Tech acquisitiveness has been laid bare after Apple boss Tim Cook revealed his company has snapped up roughly 100 companies over the last six [...]
Elon’s Bitcoin bet hands Jeff Bezos back title of world’s richest person February 23, 2021 Elon Musk is now merely the second richest person alive, after the eccentric entrepreneur’s Tesla ploughed $1.5bn dollars into Bitcoin, which has plummeted in value in recent days. Tesla’s share price has fallen around 25 per cent from its peak, amid sell-off of high-flying technology stocks. Tesla’s fall was compounded still by the fall in [...]
Easy does it for travel and leisure as they underpin the FTSE 100 today February 23, 2021 After a promising start European markets struggled to maintain their early market optimism today. However, some decent gains continue in the likes of travel and leisure stocks, with multi-month highs in a lot of cases. Over the last three days this renewed buoyancy has been evident in anticipation of a possible reopening, and with a [...]
FTSE reshuffle: Newcomers Dr Martens and Moonpig battle for promotion February 23, 2021 The FTSE 100 is set for another reshuffle next week as the blue-chip index adapts to the pandemic and makes way for a handful of newcomers. FTSE Russell, which runs the index, will decide who’s up and who’s down according to closing prices on 2 March, with changes effective from 19 March. Despite the pandemic [...]
Tesla rival Lucid Motors gears up for $24bn stock market float February 23, 2021 A luxury electric vehicle maker looking to challenge the dominance of Elon Musk’s Tesla is set to go public in a blank cheque deal that will value it at $24bn (£17bn). California-based Lucid Motors has agreed to merge with Churchill Capital IV, a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) set up by former Citigroup banker Michael [...]
City A.M. TV: Daily Market Snapshot (video) February 23, 2021 Following false breakouts in markets last week, downside momentum continued to build yesterday.
US tech sell-off continues as markets tumble for a second day February 23, 2021 Markets in the United States tumbled today, as a tech stocks in the US were hammered by a sell-off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.06 per cent at the open, the S&P 500 fell 0.5 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite took the biggest hit, dropping two per cent. Large companies like Apple, Amazon [...]
Crypto selloff sends Bitcoin tumbling below $50,000 February 23, 2021 Bitcoin tumbled this morning as investors ditched cryptocurrencies amid nervousness over sky-high valuations. Bitcoin suffered its biggest daily drop in a month to fall as low as $45,000 before recovering to just over $48,500. Ethereum is also down more than 18 per cent to $1,512. It follows Monday’s crash which saw Bitcoin plunge from $58,000 [...]
Is technology a new asset class? February 23, 2021 With Covid-19 accelerating digitalisation, the question facing many companies is no longer whether technology is important, but just how important? What percentage of their time should a bank or retailer’s top executives spend thinking about technology? How much investment should a company make in tech? What weighting should institutional and retail investors give the sector? [...]