It’s customary in Britain to wish people a merry Christmas and a happy new year. This greeting is used by everyone and has no religious connotations. I know that in North America people often say “happy holidays” for fear of … Continued
It is widely believed, especially by Americans, that US capital markets are superior to those in Europe and elsewhere. But whatever the general truth of this may be, in one area the US client gets a far worse deal than … Continued
My old friend and economist at FTI Consulting, Alison Sprague, drew my attention to this graph, suggested for the BBC TV programme “Newsnight” by her colleague Vicky Pryce: There are several excellent graphs submitted by economists on the Newsnight website. … Continued
In the interests of full disclosure and admiration for a good joke, here is the cover of the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine. It’s interesting to see how the French (and perhaps others) see the contemporary … Continued
Amid the continuing arguments about whether the UK started to pack its bags ahead of leaving the EU last week, the more serious problem is that the Eurozone leaders have signed up for a future of deflation, recession and mass … Continued
The Financial Times ran an article yesterday called “US seeks to calm Beijing containment fears“. You may not have noticed but military tension has been rising between the US and China for some time. The word containment is a reference … Continued
Paul Krugman shows in his blog yesterday how relatively minor is the current British debt to GDP ratio by historic standards. I’ve used the same data source (IMF historical debt database) to show the UK and US data, going back to … Continued
OK, not three words you’d expect to see in the same sentence. But Patrick Chovanec, who writes a very enlightening blog on China, tells us about the many social functions of the giant IKEA store on the edge of Beijing, … Continued
MFin applications are open this year until the end of May, one month less than last year. We currently offer a place to everyone who meets the necessary standard. This could change if we had so many successful applicants that … Continued
As if the dismal state of European political leadership weren’t enough, we have further evidence of the deepening problem on the other side of the Atlantic in Ed Luce’s article in today’s Financial Times. One sentence caught my eye in … Continued
Rogue traders, like the poor, seem always to have been with us. Liaquat Ahamed, in his excellent “Lords of Finance” tells us on page 422 how the head of Lazards, one of the City’s most illustrious banks at that time … Continued
I normally try to be optimistic but we are living in difficult times. The risk of a calamity in the European economy is alarmingly high. While catastrophes such as the pan-European slump we are now threatened with have multiple causes, … Continued
As the Financial Times shows today, German bund (government bond) yields are now higher than British gilts. This is not something that the UK should feel great about as it reflects a general pessimism about the Eurozone prospects and a … Continued
I mentioned in class recently that utility stocks are in some respects like bonds. Which prompted the question, do you value them like bonds then? No. Utility shares are still equities and must be valued as such, but they are … Continued