Officials within the Biden administration have stated that the new US government “will take action – not just to reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration – but also to start moving our country forward”. Few things on the agenda promise to move the US forward more than Biden’s fiscal plans. The White House…
Despite the upheaval of the past year, in investment terms we have started 2021 in much the same position we were 12 months ago – before the pandemic. The extraordinary support provided by central banks has kept the global financial system awash with liquidity. US stock markets are trading at all-time highs, while major equity…
As Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States this Wednesday, a collective sigh of relief, at the return of civility, decency and a genuine interest in the wellbeing of all citizens, could be felt around the world. Perhaps not one of the great inaugural speeches of US history, and one…
With most of the developed world stuck at home, it has been a good year for chipmakers (no, not those kind of chips). Developers and manufacturers of semiconductors saw a massive bump in demand in 2020, buoyed by the “stay at home” orders issued by governments and the consequent increased computer usage. TSMC, the world’s…
While Donald Trump won the title of America’s most impeached President, the prize for strangest news story of the week went to his eldest son. Donald Trump Jr took to Instagram (well, it couldn’t be Twitter, could it) to make a plea to billionaire Elon Musk: set up a Trump-friendly social media platform to “blow…
As we wrote last week, there is a broad consensus that this year will see a strong economic rebound as mass vaccinations finally put an end to pandemic – even if we have to wait until the second half of the year to see it. Ahead of next Wednesday’s inauguration of Joe Biden’s as the…
In official civil service communications, the word ‘Brexit’ has been mostly absent for nearly a year. According to Downing Street diktat, Brexit is an historic event that occurred at the end of last January (or was it March 2019?). Therefore, we never need speak its name again. Negotiations on “changing regulatory alignment” and similar phrases…
The end of 2020 may not have felt festive for most of us, but capital markets certainly had some cheer. At the global level, equities saw a 2.2% rise in December. It was a continuation of the disparity we saw throughout the year. As coronavirus numbers soared, and governments shut their nations down, the global…
Just like 2020, 2021 has kicked off with rather more lively news flow than many will have hoped for when they gladly said goodbye on New Year’s Eve to what many experienced as a truly annus horribilis. Yet even though events of massive importance have taken place since we last reported, they are, in most…