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As shares break new records what is the market discounting?
Thursday 09 Jul 2020The coronavirus crisis has seemingly been absorbed by the market in stages as the scale of the economic damage has become apparent. According to data analysed by Bank of America the broad S&P 500 index took only 22 days to fall by 30% from its record high, the fastest rate in history. The...
ESG-principled investors abandon Boohoo
Thursday 09 Jul 2020Shares in online fashion purveyor Boohoo ( BOO:AIM ) have plunged 45% from recent record highs to 230p following allegations of modern day slavery in supplier factories in Leicester. The negative backlash suggests that ESG-principled investors are turning their back on the company and that the...
Work from home boom spawns specialist ETF
Thursday 02 Jul 2020As working from home takes on a life of its own, the trend has now become an investment strategy after the launch of a specialist exchange-traded fund in the US. The Direxion Work From Home ETF will track the Solactive Remote Work Index, a 40 stock index of work from home-friendly product and...
Shell follows BP by marking down the value of its assets
Thursday 02 Jul 2020The £22 billion worth of asset write-downs announced on 30 June by Royal Dutch Shell ( RDSB ) reflected its lower commodity price assumptions in the wake of coronavirus. They provided a gloomy trailer to its second quarter results but there were some bright spots for investors to take away. The...
UK GDP figures are set to get worse
Thursday 02 Jul 2020The stress on the UK economy and on public finances from the coronavirus continues to be very evident. This has implications for the markets, inflation and sterling as we move into the third quarter. Also looming large on the horizon is an apparent end of September deadline set by the UK Government...
Holiday bookings ‘explode’ but the stock market isn’t convinced
Thursday 02 Jul 2020Holiday companies say bookings have ‘exploded’ as travel restrictions ease, but the stock market seems less than enthusiastic. From 6 July, blanket restrictions on non-essential overseas travel will be relaxed in the UK, and holidaymakers will be allowed to travel to certain European countries...
Taking stock of markets and the major challenges ahead
Thursday 02 Jul 2020As we reach the halfway stage in what has been a year of upheaval, we thought we would look at which markets and sub-areas of those markets have held up best and which are still nursing their wounds. For the first half of the year the UK’s FTSE 100 benchmark of large cap companies had lost 16.9%...
Gear4music is back in a profitable groove
Thursday 25 Jun 2020Shares in online musical instruments retailer Gear4music ( G4M:AIM ) rallied 21.1% to 387.5p after the York-headquartered company reported (23 June) a ‘strong return to profitability’ for the year to March 2020. This expunged doubts that Gear4music couldn’t achieve the operational improvements...
Saudi stake-building is no answer to BT’s dismal stock performance
Thursday 25 Jun 2020The Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund (PIF) is thought to be quietly building a stake in UK telecoms giant BT ( BT.A ) , but hopes that the sovereign wealth fund is laying the foundations for an all-out takeover have been shot down. Rumours have emerged that PIF has been buying slugs of BT stock...
Has the death of physical retail been over-exaggerated?
Thursday 25 Jun 2020Has the death of physical retail stores been over-exaggerated? Investment bank Morgan Stanley believes they could make a comeback after lockdown ends, based on the findings of its survey of 1,000 people conducted in May which suggests that many consumers are missing in-store shopping for clothing...