Markets hold their breath
Donald Trump’s apparent olive branch to Iran helped to temporarily stabilise markets this week. Stock prices gained a little in the early part of the week, government bond yields fell back from recent highs, and energy prices dropped back from last Friday’s...
Escalation precedes de-escalation
The Iran War keeps dragging down markets. Israel’s strike on Iran’s South Pars gas facility, followed by Iran’s strike on a Qatari liquified natural gas facility – the largest in the world – saw crude oil spike above $115 per barrel and...
Capital markets’ fragile optimism
Stock markets pulled back over the last couple of days, as oil prices rose to around $100 per barrel (pb). Before that, equities had been holding up okay, particularly large cap stocks. Sterling has slipped about 0.5% against the US Dollar which...
Known Unknowns returns
The US and Israel’s war against Iran has plunged capital markets into uncertainty. No one knows how long it will last, what the endgame is or how much the global economy will be disrupted along the way. Markets are famously ignorant of...