Brexit countdown – modelling a ‘what if’ using ITV as an example

Only four trading days to go before the Brexit vote, so if you believe the current polls are more accurate than for the Scottish referendum, you are probably already underweight or short Sterling, UK Banks and groups exposed to UK domestic consumption (advertising, retail, hotels & restaurants, property and even some German auto manufacturers etc) […]

Continue reading

China’s crude oil import surge being refined and exported rather than implying rising domestic demand

If unplanned outages from Canada and Nigeria (of approx -2mb/d) have provided the supply side contraction behind the rebound in crude prices, China’s PBOC credit injection of $1tn in Q1 has helped to deliver the demand side component, which along with ECB and BoJ NIRP, have also helped keep the record levels of global inventories […]

Continue reading

Oil stocks continue to reach beyond a $60/bbl oil price

Mr Micawber it seems is alive and well over at OPEC, where the last ‘do nothing’ meeting has ended in the warm glow of oil prices being up 80% since the last event (in Dec 2015), with the narrative of a market experiencing a net reduction in non-OPEC supply of approx -740k b/d against global […]

Continue reading

Markets get nervous on Ad Agencies ahead of long awaited ANA report on media kick-backs

Phantom menace It’s taken eight months, but is seems the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is finally ready to release its eight month investigation into US media agency rebates. Its apparent pre-release briefing to a number of trade publications and newspapers suggests that it has uncovered ‘Non-Transparent’ practices, including claims that agencies are collecting media […]

Continue reading

Is Mediaset Bollore’s next media target?

As the layers are peeled away, there is a shocker in the Mediaset numbers. This is the woefully low EBIT margins currently being delivered from the core Italian commercial TV activities. With its Mediaset Premium results for 2015 now finally revealed (yes and you only have to go to page 337 of Mediaset’s 2015 annual […]

Continue reading

Another US non-farm payroll report and probably another deferral of the interest rate increase

The Fed it seems is off the hook for an interest rate increase for at least another month after the May non-farm payroll number. At +38k of net additions for the month (+25k for private sector) and with March and April figures also restated down by -59k, this is hardly the escape velocity of a […]

Continue reading

Facebook: Q1 beat followed by controlling shareholder share sale – ring any bells?

Facebook shares had a good bounce on its blistering Q1 results which, oh so conveniently, accompanied its announcement of a stock split into new non-voting C class shares. This is a similar ploy the one Vere Rothermere used a few years ago with the DMGT scrip issue as a way of enabling him (well at […]

Continue reading

Looking beyond central bank interference in equity valuations

Behind the incessant background noise of Yellen’s ‘will she won’t she raise rates’ discussion, the closing of the Q1 results season provides a good opportunity to take stock of the broader earnings and more importantly OpFCF yield basis on which equities are priced. Relative to expectations at the start of the year, there have been […]

Continue reading
1 35 36 37 38 39 54