Russia’s Putin launched an unprovoked military invasion into the Ukraine on February 24th 2022. Up to that point Putin had three strategic options to deal with the self-inflicted situation in the Ukraine: to de-escalate, to muddle-through or to attack. I had assigned a low probability to...
Read MoreThe Russian President threatening the Ukraine, offers highly uncertain rewards yet a potentially lethal downside for him and his inner circle. Russia is getting ahead of itself apparently emboldened by the illegal and only modestly sanctioned seizure of Crimea. The blame, however, lies by no...
Read MoreWe are pleased to announce that one of our investments, NerdWallet, the personal finance website founded in 2009, went public this month. The company recorded $182 million in revenue in the first six months of 2021, representing YoY growth of 32%. NerdWallet generated $5...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY New Monetary tightening cycle at hand The Federal Reserve finally got off the fence and announced plans for a new monetary tightening cycle to start later this year with a phased reduction in its bond buying programme (tapering of QE) to be completed by mid...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY Taper whimper The much anticipated Fed speech at the Central Bankers’ annual convention in Jackson Hole (held remotely on Friday 27th August) provided little new insight into the Fed’s plans for monetary tightening. On the contrary, Powell confirmed that tapering of the QE would probably...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY The China Investment Conundrum As will be apparent to all readers, China has started to flex its political and economic muscles in a significant way over the past few years based on its perceived and real economic strength. As of December 2020, China’s GDP was calculated...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY Growth RATE slowdown ahead GDP growth numbers for the quarter just ended (Q2, 2021) are likely, once the data is released, to shoot the proverbial lights out across developed markets. Annualised growth for the US is expected to exceed 10%p.a. In the meantime, we can see real time...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY Talking about….talking about tightening monetary policy The super-accommodative monetary policy seen in the leading developed economies over the past 15 months may have seen its low point as talk and some actual moves towards tightening start to take shape. While no major Central Bank has so...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY Early Warning Signals? While real time economic data continues to follow the recent growth and inflation script from previous Global Market View reports, a number of recent events in financial markets might serve as early warning signs of trouble ahead – rather as singing canaries...
Read MoreGLOBAL ECONOMY Warning – Inflation Returns The past month has seen a rapid rise in longer dated Government bond yields in all G7 countries as inflation fears finally began to impact financial markets. Investors sold Government and Investment Grade fixed income instruments, pushing up yields and leading...
Read More