“Carney warns fall in migrant workers could push up wages and inflation” – Doh!

“There’s an old saying. Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining” (The Outlaw Josey Wales – 1976)   The headlines, such as the one above from the Guardian may have juiced up the point a little, but underlying the attempted prevarication in his recent speech on Globalisation and inflation, this is pretty […]

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Apple (aapl) – where to now?

It’s difficult to get overly excited with the shares. Having briefly rallied after the better than expected Q3 results, the long awaited new product launches do little to resolve the big question and the shares are back below their relative market level when I closed the GrowthRater long position back on 13 May, for a 29% […]

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US wage growth slows in August

In between hurricanes, German elections, North Korean bomb and missile tests and the usual Jackson Hole navel gazing fest for central bankers, the August non-farm payroll estimates from the BLS may have struggled to make the front pages.  At +165k, net private sector job additions for the month (+174k excluding movements in seasonal adjustments), it […]

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Rising interest rates may be exposing advertising ineffectiveness

With the WPP share price down -11% on its Q2 earnings release, as FY17 revenue growth forecasts are trimmed along with market estimates for global advertising growth, I thought about writing a long winded post about markets propensity to increasingly aim below guidance towards the end of an economic cycle and in particular while the […]

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US adds +205k jobs in July – normally a positive for the US dollar, but now?

The problem of communicating a softening macro outlook is that it lowers interest rate expectations which in turn is a buy signal for not just investors, but also recruiters.  So while the IMF cut its US GDP expectations for 2017 and 2018 by -20bps and -30bps respectively (both now to +2.1%) and currency markets have ‘drumfped’ […]

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P&G slashes digital spend with no impact – an ‘Oops’ moment for digital!

Those following Alphabet’s Q2 results may have noticed the changing mix driving revenues. While year-on-year organic revenue growth is still comfortably holding above +20% pa, it is increasingly driven by accelerating growth in paid clicks which are offsetting a higher rate of decline in the price per click that it receives. Given the auction basis […]

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Wazzup – 27 July 2017 – a results palooza!

A results deluge today as companies report Q2 numbers ahead of the August holidays.  Updates from RELX, ITV, DMGT, Sky, A3M, S&P Global, Amazon, Comcast, Nielsen, Solocal, Barrick, Dow Chemical, Fiat Chrysler, Eastman Chemical, BASF, Air Products, Danone and VW, to name a few.     RELX  – H1 FY17 results.   Fortunately, another steady […]

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