Chairman Jérome Powell may in some peoples’ views have come to the rate hike party late but he is as of last night a fully paid up member: 50 bps on the cards for the next meeting on May 3/4 and a further 50bps in June. Stand by for (more) talk of recession by the end of this year: hikes of this magnitude and speed must have an effect on an economy which is still recovering from the pandemic. EUR/USD 1.0850.
Forget buying FANGs go for AAA
Since Facebook fell from favour despite changing its name to META and Netflix as we reported earlier in the week losing subscribers rather than gaining them as expected, the FANG bubble looks a bit deflated. However still plenty of good prospects at Amazon, Apple and Alphabet- owner of Google. The tech party is not over, just different and smaller.
Early bed on May 15 so you can catch a lunar eclipse starting at 02.32 BST on Monday May 16 with the culmination and total eclipse at 04.29. What a way to start a week !
With Elon Musk announcing that he has $46.5 billion of financing to buy the company lined up, he might feel that he deserved more than the response he received from the Twitter board: silence! Never mind, his own Twitter shares have appreciated more than $10 billion just on his bid!
It was this day in 1976 that Johnny Taylor’s Disco Lady was certified platinum which means that it had sold 2 million copies and notably it was the first song to reach that milestone. Not perhaps the greatest of lyrics but it sure was popular; here it is:
Shake it up, shake it down
Move it in, move it round, disco lady
Move it in, move it out
Move it in, round about disco lady
Shake it up, shake it down
Move it in, move it around, disco lady
Hey sexy lady
Said I like the way you do your thing, Lord, have mercy girl
You dance so fine and you’re right on time
Girl, you ought to be on TV, on soul train
When you get the groove, it ain’t no stoppin’
Just can’t help it, but I’m, I’m finger poppin’
Shake it up, shake it down
Move it in, move it round, disco lady
Move it in, move it out
Move it in, round about disco lady
Shake it baby, shake it
Baby, shake your thing
Shake it baby, shake it
Baby, shake your thing
You’ve got me groovin’, I feel like movin’
You got me movin’, can’t sit still I’m groovin’
I like that funky stuff
Shake it up, shake it down
Move it in, move it round, disco lady
Move it in, move it out
Shove it in, round about, disco lady
Have a Great Weekend!
Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder
UK Housing Market Plenty of comment about the UK’s housing market and where it is headed, but maybe it’s time to boil down the essentials for the next year: with rates higher and unemployment likely to rise, conventional wisdom suggests that the housing market will fall. However, there are two key differences to recent previous […]
US Economy The US job figures on Friday most certainly set the cat among the pigeons: with non farm payrolls expected to be up by 187,000 and the market’s expectation that Chairman Powell of the Federal Reserve was talking the talk rather than walking the walk when he had said last Wednesday that rates were […]
Central Banks and Cost of Borrowing Drivers The two principal levers used by central Banks are monetary policy and the setting of interest rates and the management of their balance sheets. With a move towards tightening ie higher interest rates and the reduction in balance sheet holdings, the snag is that despite some encouraging signs […]