I know, everyone likes being bearish these days because they’ve all watched The Big Short and think Credit Default Swaps are cool. But I’m somewhat bemused that, after a decent couple of weeks for both equities and commodities, everyone’s asking me this  –  “Gold: when will it crash again?” Clearly there’s no pleasing some people. The answer…

Osborne’s budget has been and gone. I often find myself saying “…yes, but what does it all mean?!” And today, I’m afraid, is no exception… except for the fact I’ve got it all worked out already. Here, I intend to tell you in plain English what some key bits of George’s budget 2016 actually mean….

I’ve often wondered why the onus is always put on ‘growth’ rather than ‘stability’ at times like this, but I certainly never expected the Chancellor to switch to a stability–based budget statement. While Osborne was upbeat on the UK’s economy (a pat on the back for himself), it seems the wider ‘cocktail of risks’ he…

Shares in Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) and St James’s Place (STJ) are benefiting from the UK Chancellor’s announcement about the Lifetime ISA. From April 2017 savers will be able to use a new hybrid product designed to encourage saving for both retirement and that UK obsession – home-ownership. The government’s promise of a 25%/£1K bonus for everyone…

Shares in Glencore are faring best as the UK Index aims for 6200 thanks to a jump in Copper prices close to March highs (the stock is still a red-metal proxy), with the commodity outperforming peers in response to a surging rebound in Japanese Machine Orders (although these are notoriously volatile) as well as continued faith…

Macro observations Bond markets pricing in 1 US Fed rate hike this year, either June or Dec following some decent macro data prints. However this isn’t massively evident in USD price action, probably because a) it’s only the one rate hike and b) the wider market still isn’t convinced. Note continued divergence between Eurozone and…