Courteney Morrison

We’re in December now (Santa rally pending? Well that really is the period between Christmas and New Year) so it was finally time to put up the Christmas Tree (how expensive are these now?!) and various other decorations alongside a customary mince pie and glass of Bailey’s. Drama arose in an effort to unblock a gold glitter glue pen (bear with me) when I finally managed to do so it was at the expense of my left eye as it fired gold glue into it much to the enjoyment of my daughter. Even though…

Apart from the Snapshot (I hear you say) is there a worse email to receive than the Lottery’s “Courteney, you’ve won a prize!” email only to find out you’re not the UK winner of €173m but in fact the winner of 10p (and actually its more like an overall loss of £7.40 in total but who’s counting). Another fairly quiet day as we limp towards the Thanksgiving holiday, Equities in Europe are still happier to drift with the Stoxx 600 ending the day -20bps but no real damage done and not a huge amount…

I’m off to Christmas Lights at Kew right now this evening which I’m told is very good even if it still feels a little early to be getting in the Christmas spirit. No real bright sparks in Europe remains the case – in fact since the middle of March the Stoxx 600 hasn’t actually moved at all and we’ve always been within a pretty tight 10% range. Not exactly the most exciting backdrop whilst the S&P 500 has rallied 16% and is still showing renewed signs of climbing with new closing all-time highs…

“How are things in the UK right now?” Well….the budget has caused a significant amount of discontent and the petition “I would like there to be another General Election” has gathered 2,271,394 signatures in a pretty short space of time less than 6 months into the ‘new’ labour government. It’s unlikely to move the dial despite how embarrassing it might seem and as Starmer said today it’s not unusual for a government to be unpopular, but the speed in which is kept on going up was quite impressive…

I said we were now on the countdown to Christmas and I had my first Mince Pie of the year today (M&S and only bite size) though nothing really to celebrate apart from maybe the fact that snow hit London. A few European investors probably wanting to close their Mince Pies (eyes for those not acquainted with Cockney rhyming slang) as the Stoxx 600 hit a 3mo low (intraday) on a day when things felt particularly shaky at times though managed to bounce a little late in the day. Though the Ukraine c…

I attended the Kings Road Christmas light turn on at the weekend which really was quite lovely (well apart from coinciding with the England vs South Africa Rugby match). Amongst the mulled wine, Children’s Choirs and Christmas carols it provided a clear and obvious reminder that we’re fast approaching Christmas! The European Equity complex today very much feels in the thick of quite a bleak mid-winter as volumes saw a significant drop with a lack of catalysts and a few things on the horizon lik…

As a Scot I’m a big fan of the word ‘Dreich’ – lots of translations but I like to think of it as damp, dark and dreary….all reasons really not to go outside! I found out today that Germany have their own word – Dunkelflaute – not quite dreich, but a term used in the energy industry to describe a period of consecutive days where minimal energy can be generated by renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind. Dunkelflaute (Dun-kel-flout-eh) has caused Gas prices in Europe to hit YTD highs toda…

When Butter Thefts in Russia is one of the leading stories in the FT you know it isn’t going to a memorable day and that proved to be the case. Veterans day in the U.S. and still lots of unknowns surrounding Trump policy and the political landscape in the Europe giving enough excuses to do…very little. But with all that in mind could today go down as the best ‘absolutely nothing happened at all’ day in Europe? The Stoxx 600 managed to close +1.13% without any obvious reason why; a catch up from…

The “Budget consequences for CPI to evolve over time” said Andrew Bailey but it does feel like that is quite a big unknown and on everyone’s mind as the BoE cut rates by 25bps as expected with an 8-1 vote. Catherine Mann, the only dissenter, who voted to hold rates, did so partly on the cost (National Insurance) and demand (increased public spending) effects of the Budget. She isn’t the only one who’s keeping a close eye on the fallout as UK Corporations continue to voice concern – Sainsbury’s…

The wait is over, Donald Trump will be back in office in January and the Republicans have made dramatic and significant progress across all areas of U.S politics as evidenced by the voting in the last 24 hours. In the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch the 3 – 3 vote split between Trump and Harris amongst the 6 strong voters was really as tight as this battle would get! An electoral vote confirmed in the early hours and a popular vote, a victory in the Senate and the House all looking p…