Tough markets offset growth in Hargreaves Lansdown’s business August 5, 2022 Hargreaves Lansdown today said “difficult” market conditions in the first half of 2022 have halted its growth trajectory in causing the value of the assets administers to drop 9 per cent to £123.8bn. The Bristol headquartered company said major downturns in the FTSE, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 offset £5.5bn worth of new business in [...]
Claims globalisation has ‘had its heyday’ are premature, Lloyd’s chief executive says August 2, 2022 Claims the dual shocks of Covid and the war in Ukraine have halted the “all conquering forces of globalisation” are “premature,” Lloyd’s of London chief executive John Neal told City A.M. In an op-ed in this newspaper, the insurance chief said that while we will “rightly see a degree of retreat and retrenchment” in [...]
French asset manager Amundi takes hit from turbulent European markets July 29, 2022 French asset manager Amundi today said the value of the assets it manages has dropped by 4.75 per cent compared to three months ago, due to “unfavourable” market conditions. The Paris headquartered firm said net incomes for the first half of the year were 16 per cent lower than a year ago, as it said [...]
World’s biggest hedge fund bets £8.6bn against European stock market will keep falling June 24, 2022 Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund, has bet £$8.56bn ($10.5bn) that Europe’s stock market will continue to decline. The US investment management firm shorted shares of 28 European companies, including bets of more than £407m ($500m) against 28 firms. The Bloomberg data, reported by the Times, says among the European firms shorted are France’s [...]
Jubilee 2022: what’s changed for savers since 1952? June 1, 2022 | City Talk It’s 70 years since Queen Elizabeth II took the throne. How have some of our key financial metrics – from longevity to inflation, interest rates to investment returns – moved over the decades? The seven-decade reign of Queen Elizabeth II has seen transformations in many aspects of our lives. That includes sweeping changes to the [...]
Retail therapy gives markets a lift as battle to contain inflation genie starts in earnest May 27, 2022 European markets spent most of yesterday edging cautiously higher, with the FTSE100 shrugging off the UK government’s decision to impose a 25 per cent windfall tax on the oil and gas sector, while at the same time unveiling a fiscal stimulus package. The decision to impose the controversial tax appears to have prompted a review [...]
Global markets: US resilience lifts indexes worldwide with no surprises from Fed minutes May 26, 2022 European markets had a much more positive bias yesterday, helped by more resilience in the US, which finished the day strongly higher after the release of the latest Fed minutes. “This positive finish took a bit of a knock after the close as another disappointing set of earnings numbers, this time from Nvidia prompted US [...]
Recession concerns vie with inflation risk for investors in unpredictable market week ahead May 23, 2022 It was aother week of declines for US markets on Friday, with the S&P500 closing lower for the seventh week in succession, making a fresh 18 month low, and briefly retracing 50 per cent of the move from its 2020 lows to its record highs late last year. The Nasdaq 100 similarly pulled off new [...]
What a difference a day makes: Markets go into full reversal mode as recession concerns grow May 6, 2022 What a difference a day makes? Having rallied strongly in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve’s decision to hike rates by 50bps on Wednesday evening, and not go harder, US stock markets went into full reversal mode yesterday, dragging European markets down with them. Bond yields also shot back up, with the US 10 year [...]
Poor start of the month for global markets: April weakness rolls into May with China lockdowns not helping May 3, 2022 Asia markets got off to a poor start to the month yesterday, as did markets in Europe after the latest China PMIs showed that economic activity in April fell back by more than expected. Much was made of the slowdown in China manufacturing to 47.4 from 49.5, however non-manufacturing saw an even bigger fall, plunging [...]