Stock Take If all the hotdogs eaten by Americans on Independence Day were put end to end, they would stretch from Washington DC to Los Angeles more than five times. It was a quiet start to the week as Wall Street was closed for the 4 July celebrations, although global stocks hit a two-week peak…

Stock Take Global equities finished the quarter on a high note, with the majority of the major indexes finishing the week in positive territory. US shares helped lead the charge, with both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ ending the week up more than 2%. The technology heavy NASDAQ has performed especially well this year….

Stock Take Not for the first time this year, last week’s economic news was dominated by persistent inflation struggles in the UK. Leading up to last week, expectations were for a moderate drop in inflation. The Bank of England (BoE) had already raised central interest rates numerous times to curb inflation. The US and Eurozone…

Stock Take Global markets performed well last week, as investors reacted to inflation and interest rate news from the US. US headline inflation fell to 4.1% in May. This compared to 4.9% in April and was less than half of what it was a year ago. The fall was helped by a drop in energy…

Stock Take ‘Listless’ would best describe markets for most of last week. Investors sat on their hands awaiting imminent interest rate decisions by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of Japan, and the latest data on pivotal US inflation. After being distracted by the banking crises and the US debt ceiling issue over…

Stock Take “America can breathe a sigh of relief,” said Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer. After clearing the House of Representatives the day before, the bill sailed through the Senate on Thursday night and the US Congress finally approved a deal to lift the country’s borrowing limit and avert a catastrophic default on its $31.4…

Stock Take Over the last century, investors have frequently been concerned about the possibility of the United States defaulting on its debt, as the country has repeatedly faced political challenges in raising its debt ceiling. In the United States, there are legal limits on the amount of debt the country can accumulate. When the debt…

Stock Take Japan’s asset price bubble of the late 1980s was a heady mixture of exuberant equity markets and skyrocketing real estate prices. The ground underneath the Imperial Palace was once said to be more valuable than the entire state of California. The subsequent crash in asset prices represented one of the biggest destructions of…

Stock Take Households are all too familiar with the challenge of paying the bills in the current climate. After last week’s further hike in UK interest rates, that challenge will become even greater for some. But when the US government is unable to pay its bills, the problems truly begin. In a continuation of the…

Stock Take  “We’re closer, or maybe even there.” After raising its policy interest rate at a rapid pace since March 2022, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell last week suggested the central bank may have reached the end point of its rate rises. Yet in confirming the widely anticipated hike of 0.25%, Powell stressed that…