The defining image of August 2021 had little to do with the stock market on the surface, it was, of course, the withdrawal of British and American troops from Afghanistan. As some readers will know, Afghanistan has significant mineral reserves, which some estimates put at $1tn (£730bn). These reserves include lithium, so it will be …
When Joe Biden was inaugurated as President back in January there was much talk of his proposed stimulus package for the US economy. The figure generally talked about was $1.9tn (£1.36tn), an eye-watering sum of money. To give you a comparison, the National Audit Office in the UK is currently saying that the Government has …
Is the glass half full or half empty? It’s one of the oldest questions (and clichés) there is. But right now you could be forgiven for thinking that as far as the UK economy goes the glass is not just half full, it’s completely full. The last few weeks have brought us a steady stream …
Introduction As everyone expected, July saw the G20 endorse the plan from the G7 meeting in Cornwall to set a minimum global rate of corporation tax. A headline in City AM proclaimed that US tech giants could face a $28bn (£20bn) tax bill, with suggestions that the tax could raise as much as $87bn (£63bn). …
Introduction “Amazon made millions but paid no tax.” You can substitute Facebook or Google for Amazon and, these days, you can probably substitute “billions” for “millions” but it remains a story we’ve told countless times. One of the tech giants has reported bumper revenues and/or profits and while doing so paid less tax than a …
At time of writing, the UK’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares is at 6,882 – up 7% on where it ended 2020. In the US the Dow Jones index is up 11% for the year at 33,821 with other major markets around the world also making significant gains in the first four months of …
Introduction In some ways, May was a relatively quiet month. Although, it did bring us the marriage of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the first PM to marry in office since Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, in 1822. Having eaten a slice of wedding cake and gone straight back to the office, Boris Johnson will …
Introduction Some of the numbers in this month’s Bulletin are simply staggering. Whether it’s Amazon’s profits or the ‘investment’ (which could alternatively be considered ‘spending’, depending on your political viewpoint) announced by President Biden. There was a time where the ‘standard unit’ of currency we talked about was a million. Company profits and valuations were …
Last month Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and boss of carmaker Tesla, announced that his firm had bought $1.5bn (£1.1bn) of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and expects to start accepting it as payment in the future. The announcement caused the price of Bitcoin to jump to $44,220 (£32,072) – a rise of 17% and a record …
Introduction This market commentary has been produced for some time now but March 2021 was the first month when a ship made the headlines. Anyone who watched a news bulletin will have seen the mega-container ship the Ever Green firmly wedged across the Suez Canal. The ship, which is 400m long, was finally re-floated having …
