The Dawn of a new decade…………..
As we enter the new decade the overriding theme of global financial markets seems to be one of ‘cautious optimism’.  This may seem only a small step on from the much criticised ‘aggressive prudence’ that we have experienced here in the UK, but it is nonetheless an important step on [...]

At one stage towards the end of 2008 prospects looked particularly bleak for the UK.  Its prior growth and prosperity had relied, more heavily than in most other countries, on housing and financial services.  But these were the two sectors most at risk from the crisis.  Tax receipts, partly as a result, were dropping rapidly; [...]

The most efficient taxes are those which are imposed on payers who are not mobile enough to avoid the tax.  Capital and rich people are more mobile than land, housing and poor people, which is why high marginal tax rates on capital and the rich are self-defeating, but taxes on consumer purchases (VAT), labour incomes [...]

Everyone knows how the world and financial markets have changed over the last two years but what effect has this had on trading styles in the market?
I have never been sure how much focus there is on why FX markets move in the short term; especially when it goes against the normal flows or opinions [...]

The US bond market has been on a consistent downtrend since the start of the year when 10-yr government yields reached a low of around 2%, then nearly doubled to a few basis points short of 4% by mid June. The selloff this year has been much more pronounced than in other countries, in part, due to investors expecting the US economy to come out of its recession ahead of everyone else.

One way to look at why markets view the dollar as vulnerable is because the world is very long of dollars in reserves, even if not significantly as a share of US GDP.  The short-term financing pressure on the dollar is far diminished compared to last year, as the trade deficit has shrank significantly, while [...]

Recent statistics on the UK housing market have shown some improvement, giving an indication that the worst for the residential property market may be over and that some recovery may be starting to take shape.
The housing market went through its biggest slump last year since the early 1990s.  The end of the credit era, following [...]

The International Monetary Fund, which can be viewed as the world’s central bank, issued its spring economic projections yesterday, outlining its most pessimistic growth projections for the near term, since it was set up.  The IMF believes that world output will shrink by 1.3% in 2009, but would then resume growth in 2010.
The world economy will [...]

The ECB convenes on Thursday and is widely expected to announce a further interest rate reduction that will take the key refinancing rate to 1% from 1.5%.  As part of the policy easing, the ECB is expected to announce it will extend the maturity over which it lends funds to the banking sector and that [...]

It seems world markets are starting to price in a recovery in global growth.  It is possible that the solid rally in equities, commodities and risk currencies this month is related to relief behaviour after dramatic falls in the exchanges in the past year, but the nature of the rally appears to be one of [...]