FTSE 100 predictions, share tips… forget it all and consider the 2018 anti-forecast January 17, 2018 The start of January traditionally sees many investors trying to fill the blank slate the new year represents with forecasts of what the coming months will bring. Ever the contrarians, including us on The Value Perspective, a blog with value investing ideas, a more recent tradition has seen us offering up our own new year [...]
Google parent Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs building its own smart city in Toronto. But why not London next? October 18, 2017 Google’s parent company Alphabet is building its own city, where it will tackle some of the most pressing issues facing London: urban growth, energy use, housing costs, and transportation. But it’s the Canadian city of Toronto where 800 acres of waterfront space will be built “from the internet up” by the tech giant, not the [...]
Three charts that suggest banks are stronger now than before Northern Rock October 10, 2017 September marked the 10th anniversary of the moment most people had their first inkling all was not completely well with the global financial system. On 13 September 2007, word began to spread that Northern Rock had asked for emergency funding from the Bank of England in its capacity as "lender of last resort", thus prompting [...]
Data might be like oil, but reputation is still the real black gold October 24, 2017 For those firms harbouring inordinate reserves of our personal information, despite the endless profit-churning opportunities, an unblemished corporate reputation remains priceless. Today’s internet giants were founded on our personal data. Amazon, Facebook, Google. They don’t have high street stores. There’s next-to no human interaction. It’s all data. But today, data is a democracy. Businesses in [...]
Meet Charlie Muirhead and Tabitha Goldstaub from Cogx, preparing London (and the world) for our AI future June 19, 2017 In the last few years, gradually, and despite lamentations from the old guard, the world has started to accept the reality of a new economy. It’s the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” “The Data Economy”, the “Information Age,” or a “Digital Epoch”. Whatever nomenclature one denotes the phenomenon, it is clear that it is here to stay. [...]
Finally, all UK banks pass the stress tests: is now the time to invest? December 8, 2017 Imagine you emerged blinking from your bunker in the wake of this: interest rates up to 4 per cent the value of the pound down more than a quarter unemployment up almost 10 per cent residential property prices down by a third commercial real estate prices down by two-fifths world and UK GDP down 2.4 [...]
Digital Innovators: Q&A with Chris Sheldrick, co-founder and CEO of what3words February 8, 2018 what3words has divided the world into 3m x 3m squares, each with a unique address made from three dictionary words, thus offering the simplest way to communicate location. Last year what3words was identified as one of 50 of the freshest and most inspiring digital companies using technology and innovation to shake up their sectors in [...]
Russia emails rock Trump and dollar drops on son’s shock revelations of help with anti-Hillary Clinton campaign July 12, 2017 Markets were jolted last night after Donald Trump Jr released a chain of emails showing he was offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton by a Russian prosecutor. US President Donald Trump’s son was offered a meeting with a Russian lawyer relating to “sensitive” information on Clinton, Trump’s rival during last year’s presidential election, according to [...]
How Gin took over the world: It’s selling in record numbers with little sign of slowing down, but could the bubble be about to burst May 3, 2018 From Dalston dives to The Rivoli at the Ritz, people are drinking juniper-flavoured ethanol in record numbers. Last year more than 50m bottles of gin were sold in the UK for the first time, with £1.2bn in sales, up from £600m in 2011. That’s more than a billion gin and tonics. And while the best-selling [...]
AI’s threat to traditional banking models September 14, 2017 Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things are now defining the future of our economy. The effect of these technologies, made possible by the colossal volumes of data we are able to collect and process, has been described as the “fourth industrial revolution”. There are hundreds of ways businesses can apply AI to [...]