So a lot of Brits aren’t known for big public displays of emotion but we are world class swallowers of sobs. Olympic standard starers-into-the-distance. Market leaders of the where-on-earth-did-that-come-from strangled voice. These last few days have seen me excel at all three as I join millions of others in processing the loss of our monarch. It’s the quirky stories that give you a little insight into the lady herself that get me the most.
The Redburn Summer Drinks tonight (internal otherwise you’d have all been invited obviously) and I have had a few firm words with myself having found myself last year trying to belt out Torn by Natalie Imbruglia at 1am less than a week into the job. Not pretty. Its safe to say it’s been a tricky summer for equity markets with volumes at seriously depressed levels, and most indices choppy but on the whole lower and the magnitude of macro moves enormous.
Snapshot today starting with a quiz question (fond memories of those Covid-Quiz’s): Since 2015, have there been more Chelsea managers or Chancellors of the Exchequer? Not much between it but the newly appointed Chelsea manager will be the 7th (1 more). Serious turnover for both though in a relatively short space of time and I can’t help but think that both club and country are in desperate need of some stability and longevity when it comes to the respective jobs. I do think both roles have some similar characteristics with both spending (relatively) vast sums of money, and without time it’s hard to assess how successful each are.
Time flies when you’re having fun. 1 year ago to the day when I started at Redburn. The Stoxx 600 was most of the way through its 75% post-covid Rally, the UK and U.S. 10yr’s yielded 69bps and 137bps respectively, Oil was at $64, European Gas was at €54/MWh and Bitcoin was at $52k. A lot has changed and there has been a lot to learn and look out for, whether it’s the Water level at Kaub, German weather forecasts or the correlation between Avocado’s and Bitcoin – it’s been one heck of a first year.
Back to school for many in the UK today and there’s definitely a feeling of more intent in the air but we might have to wait a day for our US colleagues to catch up as they eke out the last of the summer wine for Labor Day. Gas prices surged as much as 30% following the news that Russia had indefinitely suspended natural gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline blaming European sanctions and said it’s stopping supply until the west lifts sanctions
I’m off to Dorset tomorrow for a little long weekend (well-deserved in my opinion) and seemed to have timed it nicely with some low temperatures and plenty of rain forecast – I guess that’s what you get for avoiding school holidays – sometimes you avoid the sunshine too. That’s never stopped a Scotsman before so it wont stop us now.
Travel has become quite tricky these days so I was amazed and slightly in awe of Redburn Sales Guru Andy Preston who informed us this week he was off motorbiking across Mongolia – how about that for an adventure. All a us a bit envious of 14 days exploring the largely untouched terrain in Top Gear style but maybe not so much of the temperatures that peaks around 30 degrees and troughs at -10. How do you pack for those conditions?!
The UK has been able to deal with Brexit and the Covid crisis relatively well in recent years but I wonder if the news that thousands of pubs face closure without urgent government support to help with soaring energy bills will be the final straw for a nation besieged by bad news and full of frequent pub visitors. The beer industry released the gloomy report in the absence of any pricing cap with one pub in Bebington showing the full extent of the pain.
A Bank Holiday in the UK is a perfect excuse to not put together a Snapshot and hope the readers wouldn’t notice. There were however too many records broken over the weekend not to give them a special mention. Duane Hansen who enjoys growing large pumpkins as a hobby decided to celebrate his 60th birthday by hollowing one out and set off down the Missouri river to break the world record for longest solo pumpkin trip down a river – as you do.
Many apologies for the lack of Snapshot last night but my old body is catching up with me and a little operation on a knee that has seen better days was needed! I was greeted by a very chatty Anaesthetist who said he was being barraged by his financial advisor asking him what he wanted to do and like so many, he just didn’t know.