In the middle of March, Russia was due to make an interest payment of $117m (£89m) on two bonds denominated in dollars. There was some dispute over the payment: Russia said it had made the payment, the investors holding the bonds said they hadn’t received the money. The papers generally reported that if Russia didn’t …
Introduction April was not a good month for world stock markets. We report on a dozen major markets in the Bulletin: they were all down in the month, with the honorable exception of the UK’s FTSE-100 index, which managed a gain of just 29 points. Why was it such a poor month? The war in …
Introduction Once again, the market commentary for our clients is dominated by events in Ukraine. As in March, we have included a special section on Ukraine and – as before – we must stress that ‘at the time of writing’ very much applies to the comments. This month’s market commentary was written on Friday April …
Spring Statement: Key points at a glance The chancellor’s update on the economy comes amid surging prices for household bills and essentials. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled the contents of his Spring Statement in the House of Commons. He had been under pressure to help households with the cost of living squeeze, with prices rising …
Introduction On Monday March 23rd 2020, the UK went into its first lockdown, following the outbreak and rapid spread of coronavirus. At this point, Rishi Sunak had been Chancellor of the Exchequer for little more than a month, having replaced Sajid Javid on February 13th. He delivered his first Budget a month later, presenting what …
Introduction Not the election of Donald Trump, not the US/China trade dispute. Not even Brexit. In all the time we have been writing this Monthly Bulletin, no single issue has so completely dominated a month’s news – or threatened to have such serious consequences – as the outbreak of Coronavirus in China. That was how …
In the first week of the New Year there was a story that was widely reported in many of the papers. ‘More and more people pushed into higher rate tax bracket’ ran the headline with – according to which paper you read – either 1m or 1.2m more people are set to pay the 40% …
Introduction January’s headlines were dominated not only by reports of lockdown parties in Downing Street, but also by growing tension on Ukraine’s border. Russian President Vladimir Putin massed his tanks on the border, with the Chair of the Commons Defence Committee saying that an invasion was “imminent and inevitable”, and a top Polish official said …
Introduction Despite the pandemic, 2021 was a good year for the majority of stock markets we report on in the Bulletin. We wrote that a year ago and – irrespective of all the ups and downs it brought – 2021 was another good year for world stock markets. All but one of the markets we …
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his second Budget speech of the year on Wednesday October 27th. It was, he declared at the start of the speech, “a Budget for a new age of optimism”. He sat down an hour later with Conservative backbenchers furiously waving their order papers as he promised “a …
