“Trust us, we know what we’re doing”

Am I missing something here? No sooner than central bankers on both sides of the pond had impressed upon us the importance of managing expectations and newsflow for fickle markets, than Bernanke throws us a very curved ball. Was this the same person that has for months been sending out signals of tapering QE, that […]

Publicis Omnicom Groupe – financials less exciting than the impending management soap opera

Oh la la, Omnicom is to be bracketed by Publicis to become part of the greater “Publicis Omnicom Groupe” with deal to be signed in Paris rather than New York or a neutral country. Does this mean a corporate coup for the French or will the emergence of a balanced board and possible removal of […]

Omnicom & Publicis – a marriage not made in heaven

Business struggles to deliver above market organic growth and therefore resorts to sector consolidation to cut costs and obscure the maturing growth profile. It is a well enough used stratagem.  Pharma has been there and done it, Telecom consolidation is currently in full flood and once again, major consolidation is being proposed in the marketing […]

Informa starts clearing the decks ahead of new CEO arrival

A Friday announcement ahead of a sunny weekend and in the middle of the results season and school holidays is usually a good time to dribble out some news that you don’t want attracting too much attention. So today we have the announcement by Informa that it is dumping 5 of its training businesses for […]

Chilly without Carney or just burn baby burn?

Before we all get bogged down in the Q2 results season which is beginning to gather pace I think it is good to remind ourselves of one part of the financial burden that is to crush us if interest rates rise to more normalised levels – that is the scale of Govt, household and non-financial […]

More muppets needed

Benanke does some back-peddling on tapering and we’re back to the ‘good’ times again. More easing of course spells a weaker dollar, which after its recent surge, was ripe for some profit taking. On the other side of this trade,  equities and commodities rose, including at last gold.  – nice to see life is now […]

US jobs growth in June – headline beat misses fall in full time jobs

Hurrah for the recovery in US employment!  June’s +202k increase in private sector jobs was ahead of ‘expectations’ and have been spun as a further confirmation of the self-sustaining recovery in the US economy and the planned ‘tapering’ of the Fed’s current $85bn per month of QE life support.  As a consequence the US dollar […]

Bernanke blowing bubbles