Brian Bollen's Blog

Reduced price: studio apartment for sale in Wengen

Just reduced in price. For sale in Wengen, in the Jungfrau region of Switzerland's Bernese Oberland. This studio apartment in the middle of the ground floor of the Chalet Margaux, in a tranquil part of the original village, only a five-minute walk from the train station.

A rarely available entry level property available to foreign buyers with little fuss.

Fully furnished with beer and prosecco in the fridge, tea bags and instant coffee in the kitchen cupboards. Just bring your toothbrush and move in. Fully operational UK tv set-up with all BBC and commercial television free-to-air channels. And others.

 

Sign of the times

Sign of the times update. Of the 24 Scottish footballers travelling to play Peru and Mexico I recognise just three names...

CSFI: Future of P2P lending

The future of Peer-to-Peer lending: A round-table discussion with Giles Andrews (Zopa), Sarah Walker (KPMG) and Daniel Lanyon (AltFi). To be held Thursday, May 31, 2018, 12.30-2.15pm. At Baker’s Hall, 9 Harp Lane, London EC3R 6DP.  Email alex@csfi.org or call CSFI on 0207-621-1056.

Nelson confirmed as leaving Standard Chartered

Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore has this morning formally confirmed that Barnaby Nelson is to leave his position as its head of securities services for Greater China and North Asia next month.

The wasteland that is British TV broadcasting

Such is the wasteland that is British TV broadcasting that while others watched the overexposed Sue Perkins host the BAFTA awards, Meet the Neanderthals, Midsomer Murders or Bake Off, my wife and I binge-watched old episodes of Time Team yesterday evening, from Much Wenlock, Hanslope and Alderton. So enjoyable.

The essence of politics

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it where it doesn’t exist, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy. 

What does Sturgeon think she is going to achieve?

So Scotland now has significantly higher alcohol prices than the rest of the UK. What on earth does 'first minister' Nicola Sturgeon this is going to achieve? Are Scotland's drinkers going to wake up and sign her pledge? Or will they head south in their cars, vans, lorries and pantechnicons to load up over the border with England?

I see the marchlands being filled with giant warehouses flogging nothing but cheap booze in its various forms, reminiscent of the glory days of the Calais booze cruises. What will Sturgeon then do? Erect physical borders with customs posts? That would surely be illegal in what is, remember, a United Kingdom.

Or will she attempt to criminalise the purchase of cheap booze? I seem to remember the USA trying to do just in the 1920s and that worked out well, didn't it? I think the Queen in the North has well overstepped her mandate.

If the people of Scotland want to drink more than is good for them, and many of them do (as I recall there are areas of Glasgow where male life expectancy is lower than in Mali in Africa), and do not necessarily lose the habit when they move further south, that is surely their business, not hers.

Welcome to Scotland, no salad for 200 miles, says one well known English comedian whose name escapes me for the moment (Andy something, cheeky Cockney chappy). That is the way the people want it. And it is their RIGHT.

What next? Tax fish suppers? Ban Buckfast wine? Water down Irn-Bru? Start a witch-hunt on tablet and macaroon bars? Force people onto diets and into gyms? That way lie madness and political ruin, I would suggest.

Is this the end of the eurozone recovery

Eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) growth slows, but adverse weather is probably to blame. Azad Zangana, Schroders', Senior European Economist comments on the latest figures announced today.

Mega PE deals drive Q1 2018 activity

There were 1,023 private equity-backed buyout deals announced globally in Q1 2018, worth a combined US$116bn, according to figures published today by industry data specialist Preqin.

Preqin says it expects these figures to rise by up to 5% as more information becomes available, but this already represents the strongest Q1 on record, surpassing the $102bn registered by 964 deals in Q1 2015.

Trade war a mistake of gigantic proportions

Jan Dehn, head of research at Ashmore Group, outlines why Trump’s trade war with China is a policy mistake of gigantic proportions, resting on a misunderstanding about how open economies work. He examines the likely ramifications on Europe and emerging markets.

Protectionism – a history lesson

Economists have known for hundreds of years that protectionism is bad for growth, encourages rent-seeking and destabilixes relations between nations with negative implications for investment. Even so, protectionism continues to raise its ugly head when conditions are such that populist politicians can dress up tariffs as acts of defence in the national interest, i.e. usually during periods of economic stress or rising inequality. Ironically, impediments to free trade almost invariably benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Where IS this supposed growth?

I look around me and see lots of leading indicators of an economic downturn (when we still haven't recovered from the previous one).

Marks and Spencer food sales are down. Unemployment in the UK is edging up. The country's largest estate agent Countrywide has posted a loss of around £208m and is making people redundant.

Poundstretcher has closed its store in Towcester. Bargain Booze is struggling. Prezzo is closing around 100 restaurants. Burger chain Byron is closing shops. Italian-style eaterie Carluccio's is running into trouble. Clothes retailer New Look is shutting shops. 

And yet we hear it is a nailed-on certainty that the US Federal Reserve will push up its key interest rate to ward off inflation at a time of global synchronised growth. 

WHERE IS IT???

Roll out the C-Suite

Singapore Exchange (SGX) and FinTech firm Smartkarma have today announced a partnership to roll out the C-Suite Pilot Programme. This is a cloud-based platform that will enable SGX-listed companies to streamline their communication and data reporting to the institutional analyst and investor communities.

I have just sent this short letter to David Smith, who writes about economic matters for The Sunday Times and The Times.

Dear David Smith,

I read your columns in the Sunday Times and The Times with great interest but mounting confusion. 

 

I am not an economist but have spent my entire adult life around the international financial markets, firstly at Midland Bank International for five years after graduation in 1979, then the FT group as a writer and editor (just over eight years, from 1984-93) and over 25 years as a freelance in the sector, so I have (in theory) a better grasp of financial matters than many lay people.

 

I find myself increasingly shaking my head at what I read in commentaries. I see that bargain retailer Poundstretcher is closing its store here in the bustling market town of Towcester. People are setting up home in the underpasses and open fields of nearby Milton Keynes, often regarded as one of the true new town successes. 

 

And I do mean setting up home, not just sleeping rough; this is truly appalling and will surely cause a public health issue as people defecate in the open and are unable to clean up afterwards. 

 

Consumer spending, I gather, has fallen in eight of the past nine months. Car sales are down. The housing market has largely ground to a halt. Everywhere I look I see grandparents looking after young children because both parents have HAD to go out to work. 

 

Yet we are told that central banks are concerned about inflation, particularly wage inflation. I find this baffling, but then personally I am today earning annually in cash terms approximately what I was earning 30 years ago as a full-time staffer at the FT. There has never been a worse time to be freelance in the quarter century I’d been doing it.

 

If there really IS growth taking place, I simply do not see it, and wonder if there has ever been a greater disconnect between the rarified financial economy and the real economy.

 

Just had to get that off my chest. But if you can offer an explanation, I’ll read it avidly.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Brian Bollen

Ottawa heads for Schroders

Schroders is today announcing the appointment of Elisabeth Ottawa, who will join the firm as Deputy Head of Public Policy.

She will join in March 2018 and will report to the Head of Public Policy, Sheila Nicoll, OBE.

ECB approves major projects

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has approved the consolidation of the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system TARGET2 and the securities settlement platform TARGET2-Securities (T2S), and the development of a Eurosystem Collateral Management System. It says both projects will modernise existing systems and increase overall efficiency.

To 2018 and beyond!

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge

For the avoidance of doubt – the Morning Porridge is unrestricted market commentary freely available to all qualified investors on an unsolicited basis. It is not investment advice…

I do apologise for the irregularity of the Morning Porridge this month – lots going on, lots of folk to see, and lots of commentary requests. Full and normal service will resume in the New Year, and next week I’ll be focusing on some 2018 outlook Porridge notes – unless of course something terrible exciting happens. Which is why I’ve primed the home PC for action over the festive break! 

Fear of the unknown among institutional investors

Liquidity from electronic market makers has become an integral part of the US equity market, but the firms that deliver it remain largely unknown to many institutional investors whose trades often involve these little-understood firms. This opacity has created a level of fear among investors about the quality and reliability of electronic market makers.

ASX to quit CHESS

ASX, the linchpin of Australia's financial markets, has today announced its intention to replace CHESS using distributed ledger technology (DLT) developed by its technology partner Digital Asset (DA).

CSD Prague opens direct account in Euroclear Bank

CSD Prague says it has opened a direct account in Euroclear Bank SA/NV.

Swiss payments harmonisation: banks finish ISO 20022 migration

No fewer than 208 banks in Switzerland have completed the migration to the new ISO 20022 technology standard on schedule.

Brian Blessed: Absolute Pandemonium

Am currently reading Absolute Pandemonium, a memoir by Brian Blessed, who played Fancy Smith in Z-Cars, Augustus Caesar in I, Claudius and Vultan, leader of the Hawkmen, in Flash Gordon.

It's very enjoyable