Courteney Morrison

The classic Roast Chicken with a bit of a jazz up was on the cards this weekend and I cannot recommend it enough. First seen on Sunday Brunch a few weeks ago this recipe is simple, fairly healthy and all done in one pot – it’s what I call a January winner. January winners have been quite hard to find so far, it’s been an interesting if not spectacular month so far but now Martin Luther King Jnr day is out the way, Trump is in the White House, January could really get going….(well that’s the pla…

The closest I’ve been to being what they would call a ‘Luxury Player’ is snaffling up some Lurpak and a bottle of Filippo Berio in these inflationary times! But in circles higher, and then higher again the focus has been on if and when the demand for Luxury goods will come back, especially for European investors with such well known names as LVMH, Kering, Hermes and Richemont a staple in the Equity complex here. The latter today was the standout for Europe as a giant beat in the Americas and Eu…

With my new years resolutions mostly broken in week one (anyone else the same?) I’ve been on the look out for a new one (inevitably to break in the next week) and have settled on a chapter of a book per night! So far so good and just finished another Ben Macintyre thriller and he’s really the only author that gets me turning the page. With non-fiction I find I learn a bit too along the way which is crucial in all aspects of life. Another thing I’ve learnt along the way is that the first day of…

January is getting going bit by bit, slowly and steady (and I know I have missed most of it), but it does feel like we’re already approaching some big moments. Just like you can’t lose a football match in the first 10 minutes, you can’t lose the year in January, but the next few weeks could be fairly defining especially once we’ve got Martin Luther King day and Trump’s inauguration out the way on Monday. Despite the softer than expected U.S. PPI across the board nothing seemingly can keep U.S…

The Transcript’s weekly update sent today was titled “A good start to 2025” as it ran through a number of quotes last week from the likes of Fed’s Lisa Cook, The Blackstone President and Delta Air Lines CEO all sounding quite bullish though with today being my first proper day of 2025 it felt anything but that. The start of the year always tends to feel like a game of Chess where it takes a little while for patterns to emerge and moves to be made and this year does feel quite familiar in that s…

A bit of a farewell from the Snapshot team here (and I reiterate it’s a HUGE team effort) with this being my (pretty much) last day of 2024 and with the next couple of weeks looking like a disjointed last kilometre of what has been mountainous marathon of a year it’s probably worth kickstarting back on the 2nd Jan with a little recap of what we’ve all missed (knowing this year it’s probably a lot!). Fittingly even on the 19th of December there was plenty still to talk about after the Fed gave e…

Crawling pace to start the week (as one might have imagined) as we continue the countdown to Christmas. Having moved house, and with us hosting our first ever Christmas it took us until this weekend to discuss if the oven is even big enough to host! It better be given the time of year its just too late to change plans. Other things not changing plans is the feeling within the European Equity complex as some similar themes of 2024 emerge strong once again: It was all about momentum today and for…

We surprised my mum at the weekend with a whole family outing to Abba Voyage. What an unbelievable set up they have! 3000 fans dressed in all sorts of 80’s clobber, all paying top dollar to go dance and sing to the bands greatest hits performed by holograms! 99% sold out, seven shows a week earns them $2m weekly – not bad business and the sort of growth trajectory I’d invest in! ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme… an inline inflation report’ cried the market who were desperate for an inline inflation print t…

Running out of things to say this week so just as well I’m off to Edinburgh tomorrow afternoon for the Scottish Investment Charity Dinner (Aka the Smoker)! With that in mind I’ll keep it short today. The one theme today that was evident everywhere you looked was that winners are continuing to do just that: The best sectors YTD in Europe (Retail, Tech and Industrials) were all amongst the leaders today. Notable gainers in the single stock space included SAP, Inditex, Schneider, Rheinmetall, Zeal…

Looked up the French word for resilience this morning was disappointed to find it was résilience. From the Latin verb resilire, meaning to rebound and not (until recently) a word used when describing the Scottish rugby team’s performances. A number of indices in Europe were making new highs today including the FTSE All Share total return and the DAX, whilst the FTSE 100 was approaching a big resistance at 8400. The Euro Stoxx 50 ended the day up 66bps for its first 4-day win streak since August…