The market is worrying about the potential of an October crash, but what might trigger it? Two suspects: a resurgent Coronavirus and/or a global supply chain cardiac triggering stagflation?
And top tip from my father: teach your kids to Ski, Sail and play Tennis!
The UK’s decision to hike taxes and put a sticking plaster on the cash-haemorrhaging NHS highlights serious issues for Soveriegn Debt Investors. Expectations on interest rates and currency markets are one issue, but the competency of governments to manage the quantum of debt raised through the pandemic and avoid rising uncertainty will be increasingly under the microscope.
China’s clampdown on big tech is painted as the Party’s programme to engineer a more socially-equal economy. This puts China way ahead of the West where the consequences of monetary distortion and the pernicious effects of social and wealth-inequality are well understood, but no one seems able to address them.
Who cares who replaces Angela Merkel? But the likely inability of the ECB to address the consequences of monetary experimentation and inflation in coming years could cause Germany’s coming generation of bland political nobodies to be superseded by something more populist and chaotic, creating all kinds of problems for Yoorp.
The increasing use of the word “treasure” to define wealth, money and resources is a fascinating linguistic shift with implications for attitudes to the way money is managed. However, changing words won’t stop the powerful threads of self-delusion and groupthink that so dominate markets today.
The UK is going through periodic angst as everything looks terrible and we wonder how to balance the budget, pay the bills and avoid penury. Relax. We worry too much. Everyone else is cooking their national accounts. The UK can do it better. Buying Boots at the Ready!
The extraordinary number of new unicorn companies isn’t necessarily a sign of booming corporate prospects and innovation. It’s as likely due to too much cheap money chasing the market, deliberate hype and deluding the masses as to their value.
