magazine archive
magazine archive
Russ Mould
Cash is being drained from the banking system: why this matters
Thursday 08 Jul 2021US journalist Edward R. Murrow may be known for the line which he used to end his broadcasts – ‘Good night, and good luck’ – but this column’s favourite comment of his goes ‘Anyone who isn’t confused really doesn’t understand the situation’. There is one particularly confusing situation in...
Can miners and oils dig the FTSE 100 out of its Brexit hole?
Thursday 01 Jul 2021The fifth anniversary of the UK’s referendum on its membership of the EU (23 June) appears to be passing with barely a murmur. Perhaps both ‘Remainers’ or ‘Leavers’ may be thinking there is no debate to be had, given the result and the UK’s withdrawal from the economic bloc on 31 January 2020. Both...
Assessing the Fed’s policy options
Thursday 24 Jun 2021During the first 200 years of its existence, the US accumulated a cumulative federal debt of $1 trillion, the equivalent of 30% of its GDP (gross domestic product). In the last 40 years, that figure has surged to $28 trillion. The good news is that the US economy has grown too, as annual GDP has...
Reasons why deficits and inflation matter to gold
Thursday 17 Jun 2021Gold bugs get a kick out of telling investors with a heavy weighting toward equities that the precious metal has a better performance record than the S&P 500 index of US shares since the turn of the millennium. The commodity is up by 547% over that period, while the S&P 500 has offered a...
What new floats say about the market’s future direction
Thursday 10 Jun 2021The plunge into bankruptcy of the Softbank-backed, self-styled ‘construction industry disruptor’ Katerra spares investors in US equities the decision over whether to buy into what would have doubtless been an eventual IPO (initial public offering). Katerra had been given ‘Unicorn’ status – a...
Rising pay could be a threat to US equities
Thursday 27 May 2021The news that Amazon is looking to hire 75,000 more workers in the US and Canada is eye-catching enough, even for a firm that employs 1.3 million around the globe, according to its website. But it is the offer of an average $17 an hour starting salary, plus a potential signing-on bonus of $1,000,...
Commodities remain central to the FTSE 100
Thursday 20 May 2021No sooner had this column raised the question as to whether its status as the single-best performer within the FTSE 350 over the last five years meant that the good news was all in the price for the Industrial Metals and Mining sector than the grouping promptly fell out of bed. Sharp share price...
Why heavy metal continues to strike a chord with investors
Thursday 13 May 2021The Federal Reserve continues to insist that inflation is only transitory and will quickly fade as the base for comparison gets tougher from now onwards, especially when it comes to important inputs such as oil. Yet not everyone is convinced. Central banks in Brazil and Russia are now hiking...
How to test the market mood
Thursday 06 May 2021In many ways right now, it looks like business as usual for the financial markets. Blow-out quarterly numbers from Google’s parent Alphabet, Apple and Facebook are taking their share prices to new highs and carrying the Nasdaq index along with it. The FTSE 100 is having another crack at breaking...
Why gold and bonds are rallying
Thursday 29 Apr 2021Some regular readers may think it does not take much to puzzle this column at the best of times and there can be no denying that the big picture right now seems to be full of contradictory eddies and whirls which make it particularly difficult for investors to form a clear-cut view. For instance,...