Today’s close of business marks the half way mark for November and a plethora of news including the Fed Chairman stating that he does not expect a major setback in equity markets is giving all markets encouragement on the economic front. From a political perspective however it is a different story with markets nervous about Hong Kong, the Middle East, the UK election and the potential Impeachment of POTUS. Yen and Swiss Franc initially led the way yesterday before falling back with the USD that natural safe haven strengthening later in the day as expectations of an early settlement of the US-China trade war receded with still no mention of a meeting between the two Presidents scheduled in December. GBP vulnerable to a setback and is considered fully priced with the results of the UK General Election due out 4 weeks today.
The over hyped virtual spin class equipment company is belatedly some would think, introducing other sports equipment at a more reasonable price-maybe. Currently their treadmill costs $4,000 which by any definition is steep, if not overpriced and the stationary bike costs $2,245. A new treadmill will be joined by a rowing machine. Like all these wonder stocks which burn through money, the race is on to sign up punters before the music stops. Meanwhile CEO John Foley is doubling down by announcing an expansionary investment strategy. Helmets recommended for all equipment.
Fashionistas among you will no doubt be celebrating Roberto’s 79th birthday today. Recently his fashion empire has fallen on hard times and filed for bankruptcy in March this year. Roberto Cavalli is known as an inventor, artist and fashion designer but some of you may recall that 15 years ago he came up with the idea of ladies underwear imprinted with the head of a Hindu Goddess. This turned out to be a bum idea and fulsome apologies were furnished to the Hindu community for printing these (presumably) big pants. However despite this, the bottom line was not seriously impacted with Roberto Cavalli worth a conservative $500 Million today. Fundamentally RC remains very very rich.
Ok I’ll stop now!
Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder
Gold With Gold accounting for the second highest proportion of Central Bank reserves after the USD and the mood music shifting to it assuming a greater influence on future reserves management, it is worth looking at the numbers behind that. In the 1960s, Central Banks held the highest amount historically of 38,000 tons of gold. […]
US Dollar Markets not liking POTUS pontificating on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy on Wednesday, and less still on his view about the competence or otherwise of Chairman Powell. Given the past few weeks, the betting is that Powell’s time is over either being replaced or having a Trump nominee second guessing him but […]
NATO This week sees the 32 member countries of NATO convening in The Hague for the annual meeting which this time unsurprisingly is going to attract rather more in the way of news coverage than it has in previous years. The ECFR or the European Council of Foreign Relations has just completed a poll of […]