Black Lives Matter: Which business leaders have spoken out after George Floyd’s death? June 4, 2020 Business leaders across industries are speaking out about racial inequality in the wake of George Floyd’s death that sparked Black Lives Matters protests in cities across the US. Floyd, an unarmed African American man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last week. Bosses of some of the world’s most successful firms, including [...]
Mind the GAAP! The dangers of “growth at any price” stocks April 19, 2021 Anyone who has ever taken a subway in New York City or frequented the London Underground will be familiar with the warning to “mind the gap” between the carriage and platform. In a similar fashion, investors also need to be fully aware of the dangers posed by the GAAP, or “growth at any price” stocks. [...]
Coronavirus: What firms will survive the pandemic? April 20, 2020 The coronavirus outbreak has created clear winners in businesses such as Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Google and Apple, and losers such as Uber, Airbnb, and WeWork. The vast majority of industries are losers as they are effectively shut by the lockdown. Taxi usage has collapsed which means it may be a long time before Uber approaches [...]
Coronavirus: Screen time soars as adults spend half their day on devices August 5, 2020 A surge in screen time during lockdown saw adults in the UK glued to their devices for more than 40 per cent of the waking day, according to new research. In its annual study of the nation’s media habits, industry watchdog Ofcom found that adults in the UK spent an average of six hours and [...]
Children’s exposure to TV adverts halves over last decade amid rise of streaming May 22, 2020 Children’s exposure to TV adverts has almost halved in the last decade as young people increasingly tune in to streaming services. Children aged four to 15 saw an average of 115.9 ads per week last year, down more than 47 per cent compared to 2008, according to new figures from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). [...]
The week ahead, 1-5 February: FTSE heavyweights front up to third lockdown January 31, 2021 After a turbulent opening to 2021, with new Covid-19 lockdowns around the world, spats over “vaccine nationalism”, and chaos on both Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, a slew of FTSE heavyweights are set to update the market in what will be a crunch week for London’s indices. Despite a strong opening week, the FTSE 100 [...]
High street sales plunge week before Black Friday December 6, 2019 High street sales plunged the week before Black Friday as shoppers held out for bargains, according to the latest data. Like-for-like sales fell 17.14 per cent before Black Friday, in one of the worst weekly drops seen since the Beast from the East decimated sales in March 2018. Read more: Inside Amazon’s Black Friday operations [...]
Is facial recognition technology finally being seen for the dystopian threat it is? August 21, 2020 In the end, even Silicon Valley has had to admit that there is something a bit sinister about facial recognition technology. Momentum has been building in recent months. Arvind Krishna of IBM was first. He announced in June that his company would no longer offer automatic facial recognition (AFR) software. He also said it would [...]
Seven online jobs to consider this August August 20, 2020 With a spate of redundancy and hiring freezes, and many offices likely to be locked up until 2021, we’ve seen a huge surge in job seekers searching for “online” and “remote” opportunities this summer. Offering increased flexibility and the chance to work from home around other commitments, online jobs can be a perfect solution for [...]
DEBATE: Should we be worried about the privacy issues around the contact tracing app? June 8, 2020 Should we be worried about the security and privacy issues around the government’s contact tracing app? Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, says YES. The government’s contact tracing strategy raises many questions and offers few answers. Why does the UK government, unlike other democracies, want a state-controlled contact tracing app? Why do they want [...]