Morning Brief – IAG

IAG

The owner of British Airways reported higher than expected profits at €68m for Q1 up from €9m in the same period in 2023. Lower fuel costs, higher ticket sales and more efficient delivery were cited as the reasons. Long suffering loyal customers of BA know that higher prices, a reduction in routes and numbers of flights as well as a lack of investment in its aging fleet were just as much if not more responsible for those profits.

GBP/EUR 1.1623

US Consumer Sentiment

This measure of how Americans are feeling is taken by the University of Michigan and is one that the rest of the world would do well to note. Worried by the prospect of a rise in unemployment and an increase in the cost of living, the US Consumer Sentiment Index is at a 6 month low at 67.4 as at May 2024. This has been driven by that stubborn inflation which so far has refused to drop below 3% and which is expected to stay above that level.

EUR/USD 1.0769

Mona Lisa

Hats off to Anna Pizzorusso who is both a geologist and a Renaissance art historian and is the first person to solve the mystery of where Leonardo da Vinci painted his enigmatic masterpiece 500 years ago. Levi on the shores of Lake Como, Italy is the answer and the bridge in the painting is the Azzone Visconti. Enigma of that smile solved.

GBP/USD 1.2520

Nesquik in Northern Spain

A builder found Nesquik tins stuffed in the walls of a home he was renovating in Lugo, Spain over the weekend with over GBP 47,000 worth of Spanish Pesetas. While he had missed the Bank of Spain’s deadline for cashing in Pesetas for EUR, he was fortunate in successfully swapping the Nesquik tins for EUR 50,000. So definitely worth looking down the back of the sofa if you are in Spain.

EUR/JPY 167.69

It’s So Easy

Back in 1977 if you were Larry Flynt publisher of the US magazine Hustler, the way to get free publicity was to offer 10 famous women USD 1million to be photographed naked for Hustler’s centrefold. Linda Ronstadt denied that she had been asked and none of the 10 accepted. Larry Flynt sold out his magazine and Linda Ronstadt became (even) better known. Win win.

It’s so easy to fall in love
It’s so easy to fall in love
People tell me love’s for fools
Here I go, breaking all the rules

It seems so easy (it’s so easy, it’s so easy)
Oh-oh, so doggone easy (it’s so easy, it’s so easy)
Yeah, it seems so easy (it’s so easy, it’s so easy)
Oh-oh
Where you’re concerned my heart can learn

Oh-oh-oh
It’s so easy to fall in love
It’s so easy to fall in love

Look into your heart and see
What your love book has set aside for me

It seems so easy (it’s so easy, it’s so easy)
Oh-oh, so doggone easy (it’s so easy, it’s so easy)
Yeah, it seems so easy (it’s so easy, it’s so easy)
Oh-oh
Where you’re concerned my heart can learn

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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