Daily Brief – Fifty Up

Fifty Up

Exactly 50 years ago today I set out on my career in the City of London. Many of the men whom I worked with wore bowler hats and smoked pipes. Discount House men wore morning dress and top hats. Everyone wore two or three piece suits and black shoes. If you wore brown shoes you were taken for being on holiday or on your way to the country. There were no women at all on the trading floor where I worked that came for the first time 3 years later. We had one to monitor in the corner of the trading floor which displayed 4 prices and exchange rates that were mostly out of date. Halcyon days?!

GBP/USD 2.3400 (then)

Larger and More Agile

In the past week we wrote about the Unicredit/Commerzbank tie up and pondered whether the ECB would indeed assert its independence of thought and come down on the side of competitiveness and shareholder value or the nationalistic blinkered political view of Chancellor Scholz and the German Government. Well Mme Lagarde, ECB President has broken cover and welcomes banking integration and larger and more agile European banks. Cynics will remind her that larger does not necessarily imply more agile, but doubtless Unicredit under the leadership of CEO Andrea Orcel will drive down costs and pursue efficiencies.

EUR/USD 1.1070

Haven Assets

Unsurprisingly Gold, Bonds, USD and Oil all rallied on the back of the Iran/Israel/Hezbollah hostilities yesterday. Some (goldbug) commentators are talking gold up to $4000 or even $5000 from its current $2670. All we would comment, is that if that were to occur, it would mean that the global axis of Iran/China/Russia/North Korea were acting in unison against the West led by the USA which would be a terrifying prospect.

GBP/USD 1.3282

International Longshoreman’s Association

For the first time in 50 years the ILA or dockworkers on the East coast of the USA are on strike. From Maine to Texas, the ports will be shut to shipments and the 45,000 workers will cease work. The White House is urging employers to increase the pay offer knowing that it will cost the US economy billions of dollars each week hardly propitious with just over a month until til the Presidential Election.

USD/JPY 143.47

Tonight’s The Night

This song by Rod Stewart went to Number 1 this day in 1976. Pub quiz fact: if you listen carefully, you will hear whispers on the record. Those whispers were provided by no less a starlet than pin up actress Britt Eklund who was stepping out with Rod Stewart at the time. It is not revealed whether notoriously careful Rod shared any of the royalties with Britt. Probably not then.

Stay away from my window
Stay away from my back door, too
Disconnect the telephone line
Relax baby and draw that blind

Kick off your shoes and sit right down
Loosen off that pretty French gown
Let me pour you a good long drink
Ooh baby don’t you hesitate ’cause

Tonight’s the night
It’s gonna be alright
‘Cause I love you girl
Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now

Come on angel my hearts on fire
Don’t deny your man’s desire
You’d be a fool to stop this tide
Spread your wings and let me come inside, ’cause

Tonight’s the night
It’s gonna be alright
‘Cause I love you girl
Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now

Don’t say a word my virgin child
Just let your inhibitions run wild
The secret is about to unfold
Upstairs before the night’s too old

Tonight’s the night

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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