At a seminar in March, Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan, suggested that the central bank should immediately start “preparing thoroughly” for a future with its own cryptocurrency. While there were no immediate plans to introduce a cryptocurrency Kuroda stressed the importance of being ‘thoroughly prepared’ should the need arise. In April it …
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 …
As we look back on the 12 months since the UK first went into lockdown one thing is abundantly clear – financially, the last year has been good for some people. We’re not talking about the billionaires who have seen their shares rocket during lockdown but rather the many, many people who have saved money …
Budget were made by the tax rises, both for individuals and companies, and by the inevitable bill for the pandemic. There was a strong ‘green’ theme running through the Budget. This was shown through the National Infrastructure Bank being established in Leeds, and the Bank of England’s remit being revised to reflect the Government’s stated …
At the beginning of March Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented his Budget. His aim: to chart a course out of the economic damage wrought by the pandemic. A year earlier he had said he would do “whatever it takes” to protect jobs and businesses. Twelve months on, with Government borrowing breaking all records, it is clear …
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 …
Whichever side you were on in the Brexit debate there was little doubt about one of the central arguments: leaving the EU would free the UK to do its own trade deals with countries and trading organisations around the world. At the end of January the BBC reported that the UK was applying to join …
The newspapers are constantly full of stories about the ‘richest men in the world.’ We are all familiar with some of the historical names on the list such as John D Rockefeller and Henry Ford, and today the title is being disputed by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, depending on the respective share prices of …
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 …
