magazine archive
magazine archive
Russ Mould
Blame game won’t stop the next Gamestop
Thursday 18 Feb 2021Today’s (18 February) Congressional hearing in Washington into what happened with shares in Gamestop should make for fascinating listening. A host of luminaries – including Vlad Tenev from Robinhood, Ken Griffin from Citadel, Steve Huffmann from Reddit, high-profile retail trader Keith Gill (‘...
Why the inflation debate is more than just hot air
Thursday 11 Feb 2021There is a general rule that the most vituperative arguments are those that take place between academics, because the stakes (and the implications for the real world) are so small. Usually, such debates can be watched with detached amusement, but there is one current spat which does command...
What the GameStop games really mean
Thursday 04 Feb 2021One of the most intriguing things about the surge in shares in loss-making American video games and consoles retailer GameStop is how they gained so much in a week when the broader US indices had their worst five-day spell since October. Such gyrations do not normally breed confidence. The spike in...
US stocks as expensive as before the 1929 and dot-com crashes
Thursday 28 Jan 2021We all know that financial markets are discounting mechanisms that look to ‘price in’ future events (and therefore trade off their perception of events rather than necessarily the reality of them). However, it did look more than a little odd that the US stock market hit new all-time highs just as...
The return of inflation
Thursday 21 Jan 2021One theme which continues to exercise financial markets is whether inflation is primed to make a comeback and – if so – what this could mean for asset allocation and portfolio strategies. The five-year forward inflation expectation in the US now stands at 2.11%, its highest level since December...
The FTSE 100 stocks with the most buy or sell ratings at the start of 2021
Thursday 14 Jan 2021The UK stock market is off to a flier so far as 2021 is concerned. The FTSE 100’s 6.4% gain between Monday 4 and Friday 8 January represented the index’s fastest ever advance over the first five trading days of a new calendar year. One question to address now is whether this sets the trend for the...
Is food one reason why inflation could crop up in 2021?
Wednesday 23 Dec 2020A month ago ( Shares , 26 Nov 2020 ) this column flagged how commodity prices were rising and how this could be a possible harbinger of inflation, whether it was down to near-term factors such as a La Niña weather pattern or something more deep rooted. The answer will only become clear with the...
The outlook for FTSE 100 dividends in 2021
Thursday 17 Dec 2020It is unlikely that too many investors will make listening to more announcements from regulators one of their New Year’s resolutions, but no-one could accuse the Prudential Regulation Authority ( PRA ) of playing Scrooge, at least not this December. Granted, the PRA may have wounded a few income-...
What is the yield curve telling investors?
Thursday 10 Dec 2020No investment indicator is infallible – if it were, none of us would be working and all of us would be playing the markets (only to find, ultimately, that there would be nothing in which for us to invest except each other’s investments). However, one which is generally held to stand the test of...
What the dollar’s decline may mean for markets
Thursday 03 Dec 2020It wasn’t always easy to understand what US president Donald Trump wanted, but at least he was consistent about the dollar. He spent much of his four-year tenure in the White House complaining about how the greenback was too high and ultimately he got his way, even if he may have finally come...