I rarely watch BBC News nowadays. This is principally because there’s precious little news on it. I suppose it all depends upon what your definition of news is. Mine is what are the obvious national and international stories today on this planet of 7 billion plus souls? Lord Reith had it right when he noted the BBC’s job…
Bad can be good and good can be bad. Michael Jackson was Bad although, according to Jordy Chandler, Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck, not in a good way. Bad can mean good as in ‘that Mustang is seriously badass’ which roughly translates as ‘that particular Ford car looks delightful’. A kind gentleman recently described my…
In homage to the Halifax’s new policy on name badges carrying personal pronouns, Williams Investment Management decided to implement a similar strategy. I self identify as ‘John’, ‘Yorkshireman’ and ‘Bloke’ (or ‘Geezer’, for any readers in the London area). I’d wanted to add ‘George Clooney lookalike’ and ‘F16 Fighter Pilot’ but unfortunately there wasn’t enough room. I’m joking,…
There’s a wonderful Warren Buffett quote that never loses its resonance. “You should invest in a business that even a fool can run because someday a fool will”. Buffett means that he wants the business to be the ‘star’, not the management. A combination of a brilliant business with competent management is likely going to…
Markets have generally weakened as investors continue to absorb a plethora of bad news. Despite expecting inflation to be ‘transitory’, all major central banks are now not only tightening monetary policy but signalling that further rate rises are embedded in their thinking. It’s a pity their hopeless misreading of inflation has resulted in such a…
Those of a certain age will remember the BBC sitcom, ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’, written by David Nobbs and starring Leonard Rossiter. It told the story of a middle aged executive rebelling against the tedium of his job. Reggie had reached a point where he could see through the office politics and constant failings…
I don’t think Stealers Wheel were referring to central bankers in their 1973 hit ‘Stuck in the middle with you’ although I could well be mistaken. However, everywhere one cares to look at present, the law of unintended consequences appears eager for a fight. Or, to put it another way, Murphy’s Law is alive and…
Mrs Newsome enjoys watching ‘Grand Designs’, fronted by Kevin McCloud. I occasionally watch it and sometimes it’s interesting to see how a family of six now live in an old ship’s funnel, up a tree in the Cotswolds. However, there’s something about him I just don’t like. Pretentious? Airy fairy? Head in the (Mc) clouds?…
Markets remain range bound. Central banks continue to emphasise support (or is it endless subsidy?) despite economies reopening. On the other hand, Covid flareups are still happening and while the Biden administration’s chief medical officer, Dr Anthony Fauci, made it clear he didn’t expect a return to lockdowns, he commented that “things are going to…
Markets have generally traded within narrow ranges. On the one hand, the reopening of economies has provided added impetus to artificially subdued economic growth. On the other, rising inflation poses the question of what central banks are going to do about it. In the US, inflation is now running at 5.4% while in the UK…