A record 20% of drinkers gave up alcohol for Dry January claimed the a British Beer and Pub Association survey so congrats to all those that took part. The fun bit has to be deciding what that first drink is going to be and a nicely timed Thursday 1st of Feb to do it. It still might be too early to toast the end of inflation and declare the fight won but we’ll have a better sense tomorrow where the Fed think we are on that journey after the FOMC and press conference this evening. March everyone…

As I may/should have guessed walking past London pubs in December that whilst Diageo may have a few problems, selling Guinness isn’t one of them. Within the Diageo results Europe showed resilience helped by strong Guinness (org sales +24%) though with continued weakness in Latam, normalisation in the US and the dreaded “downtrading” in Whisky and Tequila shares initially fell until the U.S saved them, rallying late in the day which was surprising to us. It was a slow Tuesday as we awaited the F…

I had a weekend that my 10 year old self would have just loved. Next to my apartment one ginormous crane, spent the whole weekend taking down an even bigger one. I wasn’t quite sure how they got to the top of buildings or back down so it was a learning experience and watching it methodically take it apart was weirdly captivating (wild weekend I know!). They talk about putting in the building blocks and this was literally that. The market seems to be doing something similar at the moment, weighi…

It’s Burns night tonight and a slightly lonely one for a Scotsman in the middle of London. Haggis still hard to find, the sound of Bagpipes only heard through YouTube and only faint humming of Auld Lang Syne to get me through what was a fairly unexciting morning. But things all changed with lunch because….(big statement incoming) I had the best sandwich I have ever had! Dom’s Subs the place and I can hands down recommend for anyone who likes…well food. The morning followed a similar pattern to…

Hello earnings my old friend…. they are back and with a proper bang this morning. A lot of love for the large caps definitely the theme of the day and anyone thinking that the Tech space was getting a little overbought/toppy had to quickly revise that with the double results from SAP and ASML proving that the biggest Tech names can still climb to new heights and signs of Europe trying to keep up with the U.S. SAP made a new all-time high as the company announced broadly inline numbers and guida…

I watched my six year old play in a chess tournament with the grammar school across the street (only in places like London can you get a rival school at such a young age, this alone is quite amazing). Small tables separated by age, three six year olds talking to their three opponents, as my stomach was in knots on the side wall. Wins & losses aside, most notable when we got home was that the score was irrelevant, the idea that they could play chess at all was what mattered to them. They were pl…

‘A rising tide lifts all boats’ was one of Timm Shulze-Melander’s comments this morning as he commented regarding Semi’s tech spending and although that makes sense in relation to Semi Capex inflation it certainly isn’t the theme of the year thus far for Equities. Unless global warming is causing regional tide’s to raise at different levels (which could very well be the case!) there was once again very clear disparity between some major global Equity markets. The tide very much heading out in A…

Was it just me or did the market felt much more sure about yesterday’s sell-off than it did about today’s rally? It was a late rally in Hong Kong and Chinese equities that seemed to set things on the path higher today but it probably can’t be classified as anything more than a little bounce after the week that we’ve had. No real signs of panic yesterday and given the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 started the day just 1.7% and 1.4% respectively off all-time highs it’s probably the reason why investors…

Big day in the Morrison household as I’ve been given the all clear to slowly phase out the crutches that have plagued my winter thus far. The tricky dilemma having avoided the vast majority of household chores is when to divulge this fairly important bit of news to the family. Taking out the rubbish always ends up being my job which I don’t mind so as and when I feel comfortable I’ll start with that. Nothing feeling comfortable about this Equity market and I thought Jamie Dimon summed it nicely…

We held our ‘Trading the Macro’ call which is always a useful refresher on all things going on across the world of markets. I couldn’t do it justice in a Snapshot so I won’t try but there will be a replay if you missed it. One section that I found particularly interesting was the underperformance of the UK equity spectrum since the middle of 2022 and whether that might inflect. Now I know it’s not the first time someone will have pointed out the underperformance and question whether it changes…