Weekly

The week that was ending 4th May.

In blighty for the family, and following on from council elections on Thursday. Fascinating and scary to see the reactions. Broadly the upstart Reform Party (Farage) did very well, with a rag-tag bunch on candidates. The Conservatives did poorly, and incumbent Labour party only marginally less so. Pleasing to see the main FT article report mainly on facts than with “Far Right” language. Current Labour response seems to be that the party is desperate to get across that they are listening, but they cannot out-Farage Farage, also most of the commentators are saying they have moved already too far right and should move back left. Fascinating.

The British electorate are mainly fed up; there is no economic growth, everyone feels poorer, taxes are too high (with little to show from it), illegal immigration is at an all time high (10k this year), the media shows daily some ridiculous legal rulings which seem blatantly unfair and harm victims of crime. On to this Labour added additional misery by cutting winter fuel allowances for old people and raising taxes by company NI and freezing allowances. The winter fuel allowance will be mentioned for a long time as a Labour betrayal. Its very hard to see the green shoots of anything coming from this malaise. Within this the change agents promising change did well; Reform. Whether they can affect change is debatable. Any radical change on immigration is hamstrung by the courts and immigrant sympathisers. Growth given the current UK dynamics is harder to conjure, and the country may be stuck in a decline for quite a while.

The FT reports the UK has managed to build 65 miles of roads in 10 years.

Internationally and internally UK stocks are claimed to be cheap, and they probably are but perhaps they stay that way for a reason. UK government debt yields are the highest in the G7 at 4.52%, its more risky than the others.

Away from the UK bonfire, bitcoin continues to make life fun. MSTR reported and immediately set up the ability to buy more BTC, having maxed out its ATM. CEPS is up huge on the week. All the ETF BTC plays like MSTY being watched very closely for incoming coupons. BTC itself is slowly creeping toward 100, not as volatile as anything linked to it. Lots of new entrants and positive comments about BTC currently.

The US initiated trade re-negotiation continues. I suspect we will see some negative trade flows between US/China soon which should see an equity sell-off. Equities really have got ahead of themselves, with the positive chatter and good employment numbers. Also retail investors seem to be lapping up any equity fall. I cannot see how we don’t see really negative trade flows soon, which drives a sell-off and increases the recession talk. I suspect a recession within months is imminent, which will be ‘eased’ away.

We shall see.

Curious.