Confused? Don’t worry, because you’re supposed to be. That way you can be sold a metric that has been anointed as the approved currency by which you are meant to determine the value of the goods or services being transacted. The fact that this currency may be flawed is fairly immaterial because it’s good for […]
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Leaving to one side the possibility that recessionary fears are being used as another ruse to monetise intractable deficits, the current round of recession fears have the “Buy defensives” brigade out in force. One such stock that has been attracting such attention is our old friend Procter & Gamble. Back in 2008, this was also […]
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What could possibly go wrong? Sky subscriptions are cyclically resilient because people go out less in recession and therefore spend more time at home where they value their telly subscriptions more. This was certainly true back in 2008 and before that for US cable in 2001. I should know, I was trotting out this argument […]
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Listening to Pearson explaining away a -7% fall in H1 organic revenues, one might have come away with the impression that the group is bravely responding to a perfect storm of cyclical forces largely beyond its control. We are reminded that College enrolments (and therefore demand for HiEd textbooks and learning materials), is contra-cyclical to […]
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Normally the Turkish military are quite efficient with their coups. This one however, looked surprisingly lame, with what seems only a tiny turnout and a complete failure to seize control of the media or airports. This enabled Erdogan to fly into Istanbul within a few hours and broadcast a rallying call to supporters on TV. […]
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Another month and another non-farm payroll number to interpret. Before you start to worry that the ‘better than expected’ MoM increase in private sector employment growth of +265k is going to accelerate the Fed’s interest rate tightening schedule, don’t. As usual, the numbers are open to interpretation as well as substantial revisions. The May […]
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Thank heavens for Brexit. For a moment there, it was looking as though Yellen had painted herself into a corner and might actually have had to raise rates. Now with Brexit, we clearly need MOAR monetary stimulus from central banks, notwithstanding the real problems being kept at bay relate more to the rotten state of […]
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The second quarter has now closed and after some fairly volatile currency movements in the closing week, it is a good point to take stock of the potential impacts to company forecasts. As markets should be already aware, Sterling reporting groups will benefit from a not insignificant fx translation tailwind from the Q3 on […]
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