Daily Brief – UK Banks

UK Banks

HSBC’s Q2 profit of GBP 7.5 billion should be a matter of congratulation but given that it takes UK bank profits to GBP 29.2 billion for H1 2026 for the Big Four – HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, and Lloyds – the Andy Burnham government is being encouraged by the TUC among others to levy a windfall tax on the banks and raise GBP 19 billion to fund the “cost of living crisis”. Given that GBP 13.7 billion has already been announced in dividends, the numbers do not add up, but that is well down the list of considerations as the newly Boss suited unelected UK Prime Minister enjoys the Indian Summer ahead of the Autumn Budget on October 28.

GBP/USD 1.3453.

Aspen Economic Strategy Group

Each year in Aspen, Colorado an illustrious group of global policy leaders, academics and economists co-chaired by Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner meet for 2 days. Membership is capped at 65 and this year Janet Yellen, Steve Mnuchin, and Jay Powell are attending. It does look a bit like the grown ups meeting well away from newly minted Fed Chair Kevin Warsh especially given that Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis Fed President is attending and that it was he who openly dissented with Kevin Warsh at the recent FOMC Meeting.

EUR/USD 1.1533.

Saudi Arabia

The world’s largest oil company Saudi Aramco earned USD 25 billion in net income in Q2 2025. In the same quarter in 2026 that net income despite POTUS, the Iran-US war and oil supply disruption shot up to USD 33 billion. Of course it is not only Saudi Aramco that has benefitted, Chevron and Exxon Mobil and BP all show the same or even larger percentage increases although much smaller in size in net revenue for the same period. Unfortunately, the architect of the price rise factors now seeks to make political capital out of US petrol prices which have risen from USD 3.63 in March to USD 4.23 today per gallon on average i.e. a rise of 17%. Given that the mid term elections are fast approaching in fact on November 3 as night follows day, POTUS is calling for a windfall tax on US oil company profits.

Brent Oil USD 78.98.

Rewilding Spain

This, it turns out is an organisation as well as an aspiration and in a somewhat unusual if not flamboyant move, Rewilding Spain is advocating the re-introduction of bison into Spain to combat forest fires. The thinking is that large herbivores eat the undergrowth that tends in dry periods to be combustible and responsible for the spread of forest fires. There is no larger herbivore than a bison which eats wood, scrub, bushes, tree vegetation, leaves and branches with males typically weighing between 450 and 900 KG and females between 360 and 450KG. So, if you go down to the Spanish woods one day, you can in future be sure of a big surprise in the shape of a herd of colossal mulching herbivore mountains.

EUR/GBP 0.8573.

You Really Got Me

This day in 1964 the Kinks released this foot stomper and party perennial. At that time synthesisers and other later tools of the music trade were not even a gleam in a record producer’s eye, so guitarist Dave Davies sliced the speaker cone of his guitar amplifier with a razor blade and poked it with a pin. Yes really. That gave the influential distortion sound of the guitar, and the rest is history-literally.

Girl, you really got me going
You got me so I don’t know what I’m doing
Yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I can’t sleep at night

Yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I don’t know what I’m doing, now
Oh, yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I can’t sleep at night
You really got me
You really got me
You really got me

See, don’t ever set me free
I always wanna be by your side
Girl, you really got me now
You got me so I can’t sleep at night

Yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I don’t know what I’m doing, now
Oh, yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I can’t sleep at night
You really got me

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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