“Will there be any companies left in the UK at this rate?” I asked my UK sales specialist. Plenty of M&A in the post-Brexit aftermath at lowly levels followed by a rush to be listed in the U.S. has left a somewhat depleted look. CRH the latest to call time on it’s primary London listing and shift to New York, following Fergusson last year with ARM choosing to avoid the City of London all together will come as a major blow. Its been reported that dealmakers are inundated with incoming from clien…

Sorry for the delayed Snapshot today but I’m catching up with all that’s been going on having been in to see a client about our Scaling Auction Algo. Amazing amount of work gone into it, though if you ask Phil Risley to explain the mechanics around it, you might have to push back your next meeting (or two)! As always happy to run anyone through the mechanics (as I know them) but if you want the nitty gritty then happy to set that up with the team too! The Stoxx 600 closed down 75bps on okay vol…

I for one am very happy February lasts just 28 days this year. Not wanting to wish away time (especially as I get older) but it really has been a tricky month for everyone involved with markets. A mixture of very little clarity, a lack of direction and an absence of conviction all making it extremely difficult to see the wood from the trees on a daily basis. The pattern was similar today with lots of moving parts but with risers and fallers largely offsetting, the Stoxx 600 ended the day broadl…

Yes there is a lot of faff, but a Sunday roast has to be up there with one of the best things to come out of Britain….ever? A roast chicken has to be the go to, less thrills but a classic, but if I’m feeling a bit adventurous there is nothing wrong heading down the pork belly route though it is certainly a bit trickier. Part of the joy/pain is using every single pot, pan, spoon and any other utensil you can find to then proceed to eat the roast in about 5 mins before spending an hour washing it…

Pancake day today and although I was sat at my desk I am told I missed the highlight which was the Inter-Livery Pancake race held across the road at Guildhall. Dressed in full regalia the members of the various London liveries competed in the pancake race and I am told it was flipping awesome. Elsewhere it caught my eye that the largest ever trial of the 4 day week found that most UK companies participating aren’t going back to the 5 day standard and are making the changes permanent. Only 3 ou…

A lot of fresh faces in the office today (and no Quicky and the Sales-trading team hadn’t been to the Spa over the weekend) as we welcomed a number of enthusiastic and talented students who were looking for a summer internship position at Redburn. It’s always nice to see the next cohort eager to impress, with a willingness to listen and learn about what we do, though I’m not sure they were expecting to be asked the quick fire question “who would you most want to be stuck on a desert island with…

Is it me or has this week already been 8 days long? Contemplating asking Quicky if there is still time to buy any extra holiday this year because I’m currently struggling to see how it is not Saturday yet. A strange combination of lots happening but also nothing happening all at once felt at play for most of the day. To give an idea of how choppy things have been, the S&P 500 has had 12x 1% moves in the last 7 days and we are exactly where we started! For weeks the market has taken everything i…

One of the most common debates on the desk (aside from where to get lunch….The Good Schnit was a winner today) is whether good news is actually good news or is good news bad news. For most of 2022 it was the latter but in recent weeks with the dream scenario of a soft landing, avoiding recession and inflation falling swiftly whilst the economy grows being dangled (putting them all together does make it look a bit fantastical), we’ve felt that good news has on the whole meant good news. U.S. ret…

All good things come to an end and we got the announcement this morning that you will no longer see Lilt on the shelves in our local supermarket. Not sure about the rebrand as Fanta ‘Grapefruit & Pineapple’ and might be staging a bit of a buyers strike but I tended to only buy one when severely hungover and desperate for all types of liquid to quench my thirst so maybe I am the one to blame. Bit of waiting and watching this morning until the main news of the day, U.S. CPI data, which came in li…

Where is the best to place to get a last minute ‘ofcourse-I-didn’t-forget’ Valentine’s present/card/flowers? Asking for a friend of course but it did creep up on me and I’m not sure I’d get away with blaming the U.S. CPI for forgetting and certainly not wanting to put it to the test. Who said romance was dead. The purse strings a bit tighter this year as a few of the regulars of a ‘typical date night’ haven’t managed to avoid the inflation wave that has taken over in the past year. Chocolate (1…