Despite steep losses in US stocks on Wednesday and Thursday, much of the narrative this week focused on how the world economy will move beyond the pandemic into recovery. With more than 225 million vaccine doses already administered across 100 countries (according to Bloomberg) – and an accelerated pace of inoculation – hopes are rising that the worst of the…
Bitcoin again captured news headlines as the cryptocurrency surpassed the $54 000 level on Friday. The currency has moved more mainstream with companies such as Tesla and MicroStrategy having recently acquired/added to their holdings, and PayPal allowing 346 million users to buy and spend Bitcoin on their platform. But the explosive rise in the Bitcoin…
This week’s News Flash does not include much on current affairs, focusing instead on the highly topical and contentious subject of taxing wealthy individuals. As we show in our headline article for the week, a wealth tax is not a new (nor a necessarily good) idea, but it is one that has gained traction in…
Whilst 2020 will undoubtedly go down in history as the year of the Covid-19 pandemic, we suggest that 2021 will be the year of the vaccine. This week’s news covers articles on the unprecedented and sheer logistical scale of the global vaccine roll out. Yet poorer emerging markets are likely to lag behind their wealthier…
“Trilemma” is a term in decision-making theory. Unlike a dilemma, which has two solutions, a trilemma offers three equal solutions to a complex problem. However, the options of a trilemma are conflictual because of mutual exclusivity, which makes only one option of the trilemma achievable at a given time. From an investment perspective, there is…
The polarisation of Americans by an autocratic leadership and a lack of bipartisan politics will be one of the most unfortunate, enduring legacies of the Trump presidency. Newly elected President Biden’s inauguration speech on Wednesday was underlined by a call for unity, in that to restore the soul and secure the future of America, this…
Last week we published our newsletter for the final quarter of 2020. In this first weekly version for 2021, we look at some of the ironic parallels between US politics over the last few months, especially the last two weeks, and of those traditionally closer to home. Indeed, the failure of political systems is most…
As we approach the end of a tumultuous year, there is a major disconnect between portfolio growth and the lasting hardship that has been inflicted on the global economy and society as a whole. Year-to-date the MSCI was up 15.78% on Thursday, gold was up 24%, and Bitcoin was up 218%, all as measured in…
This week was characterised by a slew of legal and regulatory actions against a few of the globe’s largest media and digital platforms, namely Facebook and Google. This is on the back of recent fines against Amazon, as well as the State of California’s decision against Tesla in May, which prevented the manufacturing plant from…
