Morning Brief – US Federal Reserve

Morning Brief – US Federal Reserve

SGM-FX
Fri 30 Apr 2021

US Federal Reserve

 

Confirmation of continuing easy money conditions from the Fed: bond buying will continue until the twin goals of full(er) employment and inflation at 2% have been achieved. Jay Powell underlined that by saying that while March employment stats were very good, the Fed will not jeopardise progress made by shutting off the easier monetary policy yet. They want to see a “string” of strong employment numbers which the market is interpreting as more than a Quarter. Employment in the USA is still showing 8 million fewer jobs than in February 2020.

 

Hyundai

 

Hyundai joined the not so illustrious list of car manufacturers which had not done their homework on names internationally when it launched the Kona electric vehicle. Hastily renamed the Kauai in Portugal as Kona means vagina, Hyundai were on the back foot. Still that was worse than what kona means in Italian-dead slow or in Norwegian-the wife, or in Polish-Hyundai Kona means Hyundai is dying in pain. The bad news is that kona in the Galician dialect of Spanish means the same as it does in Portuguese. At GBP17,000 or USD 23,600 the Hyundai Kona may say something about their owners’ green credentials but a whole lot extra depending on the country.

 

Fortnum and Mason

 

Favourite posh London grocery and delicatessen is now 314 years old having been founded in 1707 during the reign of Queen Anne when Piccadilly looked rather different to how it is today. F&M are keen to demonstrate their measured approach to business and this is born out by them taking 31 years to perfect the Scotch Egg which they started marketing in 1738. Other notable events include Queen Victoria ordering a large consignment of beef tea which she sent to Florence Nightingale in the Crimea in 1856; F&M hampers being supplied to the Suffragette Movement in 1911 and again to the Everest expedition in 1922. Recently F&M have established bee colonies high above the streets of London with hives on top of the Royal Albert Hall. For honey lovers F&M have a superb selection of honey and will dispatch it to most parts of the world but probably not to the Crimea at the moment….

 

Celine Dion.

 

It’s all a long time ago, but Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion was somewhat surprisingly drafted in to represent Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988. Celine duly won with this song, Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi. Celine sang the song of course in French, but while it is of course very much better and evocative in French, here it is in English:

 

Don’t leave without me

 

You who seek the star

You who live a dream

You, heroes in the space

In the heart, bigger than the earth

Give me the chance

Take me far from here

 

Do not leave without me

Let me follow

You who fly to other cities

Let me live

The most beautiful adventure

The most beautiful journey

Which leads one day

To suns

To the planets of love

 

You the new poets

You the magic birds

You, you might find

New music

You, give me a chance

I want to sing along

 

Do not leave without me

Let me follow

You who fly to other cities

Let me live

Blue of infinity

The joy of being free

On rays, on suns

 

On songs, on wonders

And in sky of love

Blue of infinity

The joy of being free

You who seek these other lives

You who fly towards the year 2000

Do not leave without me

 

Have a Great Weekend!

 

 

 

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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