magazine archive
magazine archive
Russ Mould
Beware the bear (steepener)
Thursday 18 Apr 2024One of the most intriguing facets of financial markets of the past two years has been the differing messages offered by bond yields and share prices. The bond market, via the so-called inverted yield curve, has been predicting a recession. The stock market has instead priced in a cooling in...
What a commodities price surge tells us about Nvidia and the markets
Thursday 04 Apr 2024While the relentless advances in Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ) , Bitcoin and US equities continue to grab most of the headlines (and that is not forgetting new all-time highs for headline stock indices in France, Germany, Taiwan, Australia and Japan), one asset is outstripping them all so far in 2024 – and...
Why the Federal Reserve may be in a sticky situation
Thursday 21 Mar 2024This column is being written just before the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on 20 March and the working premise is that chair Jay Powell and his colleagues at the US Federal Reserve will leave the headline interest rate unchanged at 5.50%. If that does not turn out to the case...
How gold and emerging markets are warning about US debt growth
Thursday 07 Mar 2024Warren Buffett’s antipathy toward gold as an investment is well known, thanks in part to a speech the Sage of Omaha gave at Harvard in 1998. Buffett acidly asserted that: ‘Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people...
Why the sinking yen is a big market story
Thursday 22 Feb 2024The world’s biggest stock market by market capitalisation, America, is making headlines as it sets new all-time highs and the second largest arena, China, is making them for the wrong ones, as the Shanghai Composite index is no higher now than it was in 2007, thanks to a soggy economy and a...
What could the next general election mean for UK equities?
Thursday 08 Feb 2024Given the rate at which prime ministers (and chancellors of the exchequer) seem to come and go, investors may be inclined to avoid second-guessing the result of the next general election, even as the Conservatives’ Rishi Sunak drops hints of an autumn ballot, and the opposition Labour Party starts...
Discover the most and least popular stocks heading into 2024
Thursday 25 Jan 2024Every year this column tracks the ratings put on stocks across the FTSE 100 and FTSE 350 by the investment banks which provide research on the UK equity market. What catches the eye this year is that the analyst community is the most bullish (and least bearish) it has ever been since our first...
What investors should expect from the US in 2024
Thursday 11 Jan 2024The US stock market represents almost two-thirds of total world stock market capitalisation, so it seems fair to assume that where America goes the world will follow, at least to some degree. Keeping an eye on the US political scene, US Federal Reserve policy and the American economy may therefore...
Five big themes to watch in 2024
Thursday 21 Dec 2023No investor knows what is coming next, and whether inflation, stagflation or deflation will result from the combination of the interest rate pauses, quantitative tightening, pay increases, rising debt and elevated geopolitical tensions. Basing investment strategies on just one scenario is probably...
Five key lessons to take from 2023
Thursday 14 Dec 2023If 2021 was the year that inflation made an unwelcome reappearance and 2022 was when fears of recession stalked financial markets, then 2023 saw share prices (in developed markets, at least) start to discount a much rosier scenario, in the form of a peak in both inflation and interest rates, as...