Capital & Conflict – brought to you by Fortune & Freedom HYDE PARK, LONDON – I have some bad news. Actually, it’s not that bad. It’s just a change. But it is something you should be aware of as a…

MARYFIELD, DUNDEE – Named “Fundee” by some, and “Scumdee” by others, the bonny city of Dundee has a polarising nature. I used to come here quite often when I was younger to visit friends who were studying at the universities…

SOMEWHERE ON THE ABERDEEN-LONDON LINE – I hope you had a good Easter. With the Ides of March now over and the re-opening now imminent (hopefully), we wonder what delights await investors in the second quarter of 2021. A couple…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – Who would you trust more? A bond investor telling you they feel something is off… or a stock investor telling you everything is hunky-dory? You’ll often hear it said that “bond guys are smarter that stock guys”…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – A short note from me today -there’s a project I’m working on behind the scenes that demands much of my attention. We’re keeping it under wraps at the moment, but I’m looking forward to sharing it with…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – You won’t come across something like this every day. Of that, I’m almost certain. Here at Southbank Investment Research, the editorial team like to do a lot of reading – especially on fringe financial subjects which may…

Selling is the dark art of investing. Whether you’re watching CNBC, reading the financial news, or listening to your broker, you’ll hear about what you should buy. Buy this stock, buy that market, buy, buy, buy. But you almost never…

Earlier this year I spotted that in 2020, solar and wind generated more electricity in Texas than coal. Since 2015, the amount of wind-generated electricity has more than doubled in Texas, and last year 23% of the state’s power came…

When Steve Morrow came across an online auction advertising the “urgent sale” of a hen for the poultry sum of NZ$1.50 (£0.78), he thought he’d found himself a bargain. It wasn’t until he received a message from the seller asking…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – They’re calling it “The Capital Riot”. Over the pond, millennial militias are on the prowl. It’s patriotism run amok. They’re hunting down, brutalising and bankrupting all those suspected of committing the most anti-American activity of them all……

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – A reader writes in: I read your posts and you are often on the mark – thank you! I wonder if you have written about Tesla. To me this appears to be the greatest bubble of them…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – “One of the greatest risks in investing is crowding. Where there is hype, there is danger. That’s not just for bitcoin, but true for financial markets. Turn that idea on its head, and the contrarian starts hunting…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – Anybody bought a new car recently? I don’t know anybody who’s used the lockdowns as an auto-shopping opportunity, but there’s gotta be some out there… I was struck by a statistic published recently that car sales fell…

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the stock market.” If you’d looked at only the value of the S&P 500 last year, you wouldn’t have thought the country was in…

I hope you’ve been enjoying some of our festive content while our office is shut for the holidays. Rest assured, normal service shall resume in January – but for today, I’d just like to wish you a very happy Hogmanay….

I hope this email finds you enjoying the festivities in good health. I won’t distract you long ­– just a quick note from me to wish you a very Merry Christmas. This year has been eventful to say the least,…

So it turns out worldwide lockdowns are pretty bad for the economy. Who knew? Bearing the brunt of this, of course, are commodity prices. For them, 2020 has been a bloodbath. Oil briefly dipped below 0USD per barrel for the…

SODERMALM, STOCKHOLM – Could this be a punter’s paradise? Goldman Sachs thinks we’re in one. Its list of stocks loved by the everyman is up nearly 70% since May, which would suggest that the “little guy” is having a big…

SODERMALM, STOCKHOLM – Not a mask in sight. The pubs and restaurants are busy – often full. But the teetotaller lobby in government has a monopoly on the sale of all booze above 3.5% ABV, and taxes it to high…

And the results are in! Sort of. If, like me, you’ve been endlessly refreshing the news since Tuesday night, then you’re probably pretty keen to see the final results of what has been an extraordinary election. Votes are still being…

TERMINAL 1, MANCHESTER AIRPORT – Remember, remember, the fifth of November… or don’t. Her Majesty’s government certainly seems to be having trouble with it. It’s ironic that tomorrow’s lockdown across England kicks off on Guy Fawkes Day. Especially now that…

ECCLESHALL, STAFFORDSHIRE – Prior to his presidency, way back in 2015, Donald Trump tweeted – amongst many other things – that it is “often to your advantage to be underestimated”. (Not “misunderestimated” of course – you’d have to ask George…

THE ROYAL OAK, STAFFORDSHIRE – “A Tory MP, a Labour MP and an SNP MP go into a pub. And shut it down.” – Tim Price Once more into the pubs dear friends, once more. They need the business, the…

ECCLESHALL, STAFFORDSHIRE – “Donald Trump has desecrated the values that make America a beacon to the world. Joe Biden is a good man who would restore steadiness and civility to the White House. If The Economist had a vote, it…

ECCLESHALL, STAFFORDSHIRE – A nice chart to start us off with today. While it’s no surprise where investors have placed their money in the stockmarket this year, the sheer degree to which they have shunned everything except tech stocks is…

THE ROYAL OAK, STAFFORDSHIRE – “Sunshine, on my shoulders, makes me happy…” I doubt John Denver would be very chuffed were he living in the UK these days (or ever), given our weather. But the great musician’s music is likely…

THE KINGS ARMS, STAFFORDSHIRE – “Whenever I tweet, some call it a tirade. Totally dishonest!” – Donald Trump, 11 November 2012 (punctuation adjusted) To some, it is a tirade. To others it is a lullaby, a constant reassurance that a…

THE RUTLAND ARMS, DERBYSHIRE – “I feel like Adam” reads a message from a friend. “I live in the garden of Eden, but I cannot partake of the fruits…” The fella in question is a university student in Edinburgh –…

THE OLD SMITHY, STAFFORDSHIRE – “Something very important, and indeed society changing, may come out of the Ebola epidemic that will be a very good thing: NO SHAKING HANDS!” – Donald Trump, 4 October 2014 He was ahead of his…

THE ROYAL OAK, STAFFORDSHIRE – “The country is already a powder keg, and now we’ve lost Christmas.” As Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins plays over the pub speakers, Tim Price’s grim email hits all the harder. It’s not a sunny…

THE JUNCTION INN, STAFFORDSHIRE – Once more into the pub dear friends, once more! While we still can… I’m glad I’m not in London at the moment as the new anti-WuFlu measures come into force. Or Scotland for that matter,…

You’ve got to admire the deity who decided the 2020 election needed a twist like this. When news broke Friday that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, battle lines immediately started being drawn in the fight for her…

THE ROYAL OAK, STAFFORDSHIRE – “Are they going to the Bermuda Triangle?” “Bitchcraft”, a (presumably) pseudonymous Twitter user in Brazil, asks a fair question. With a chart like this, you have to wonder exactly where Singapore Airlines is flying people…

THE KINGS ARMS, STAFFORDSHIRE – “It’s like he’s consistently lucky. Which means there’s something we’re not getting…” So remarked our energy analyst Kit Winder to me the other day (via text). He was describing the performance of Sam Curran, a…

Yesterday was another grim day for markets, with tech tumbling for the third day in a row. Apple lost 6%… each of the other FAANGs lost at least 3%… and Tesla even lost 21% in trading yesterday. The misery spilled…

It’s Kit Winder here. As Will mentioned yesterday, Boaz is away this week so I’m covering for him today and Thursday. Today I want to take a look at one of the key arguments for why gold is rising. I’m…

Happy hump day, dear reader. I told you yesterday this poll was coming… Who do you reckon will win the US election? I want to know what the Capital & Conflict readership thinks. I’m not asking who will win the…

Well dear reader, the results are in. This week, we’ve been exploring the prospect of another nationwide lockdown brought about by a second wave of WuFlu. It’s a heavily consequential matter for our lives, let alone our investment portfolios. And…

An old buddy of mine in Aberdeen was formally diagnosed with the WuFlu yesterday. He’s the only person I know to have actually tested positive, and not just exhibited symptoms which led them to conclude they had it. While several…

I must confess dear reader, I had not heard of the band named Spandau Ballet until this week. It was only after I received the rather… cryptic series of texts above that I discovered the group and its 1983 hit…

Ouch. The ol’ business of banking is taking a beating. HSBC is in the process of cutting 35,000 jobs and setting aside $8-$12 billion to absorb losses from WuFlu-related defaults. The popular portfolio holding has now fallen beneath the level…

August already huh, dear reader? The year feels like it’s flying by… and yet the days before lockdown, from January through to March, feel like forever ago. Strange times. I wonder how we’ll look back on 2020 in a few…

“Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy.” – David Cicilline, US congressman for Rhode Island The emperors of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon appeared before the US House…

Kodak has joined the growing list of companies with spiking stock prices and is perhaps the most surprising of all. What these companies share is a good story, not a great business. In this episode, Boaz Shoshan, Kit Winder and…

Dear reader, I- Hmmm. So, uh… you remember that company that used to make cameras when you were a kid? Kodak? Apparently it uh… makes drugs now. Got three-quarters of a billion dollars as a loan from the US government…

I was thinking about how it’s a shame we don’t have a new North America to discover. We could send the Royal Navy off to colonise it and then sell it off like John Law did, thereby solving the problem of the national debt. And then it hit me. The world does have such a place…

With Boaz Shoshan otherwise occupied, Southbank’s tech expert Sam Volkering and macro-strategist Nickolai Hubble talked about the news this week. UK GDP plunged by a quarter, before bouncing back less than expected. But what does that really mean? Will gold’s…

What made Russell Napier so interesting is that he stuck with his prediction of prolonged deflation in the face of QE1, QE2, QE3 and so on and so forth. While many financial analysts were worrying about hyperinflation, let alone inflation, Napier said we’d see a lack of inflation. And he was right.

Back in early April when lockdown was stretching out before us like a vast expanse, I noted in this letter just how good it would finally be to have a freshly poured pint at a pub. With the pubs now…

Happy hump day, Reader, And what a hump it is that we’re cresting. Charlie Morris, who had billions of pounds under his management when he was head of absolute returns at HSBC, described Tuesday to be “a memorable day in…

The year of our Lord two thousand and twenty just keeps on delivering the goods. Remember this chart of Tesla I showed you a month ago (A Looney Tune you don’t want to miss – 10 June)? Source: me, on…

A buddy of mine has had enough – he’s getting out of here. It was the first time we’d seen each other since the lockdown began. I could tell he was somewhat different when I met him, and not just…

A few weeks back on our market broadcasts we discussed how the cybersecurity sector was booming amid the lockdown. I use interest in the $HACK ETF to gauge interest in the sector, and it’s now reached all-time highs, up over…

Is this what a market top looks like? Source: Hao Hong, on Twitter When watching the market becomes not just a recreational, but a relaxing activity… you have to assume that the market must have moved in a direction which…

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season…

It felt odd going back to the pub after three months of drinking in private. But it got much weirder after a stranger began speaking to me about my hat. I was standing in the queue outside with my girlfriend….

Guess when this magazine cover was printed: Any ideas? Bloomberg bought BusinessWeek at the end of 2009, and the design is clearly quite dated… but pretty much all of those stories could be written today. Billions are flowing into index…

Presumably you are older now than you were in the 70s… Well, in today’s podcast, we explore what a return to inflation would mean – whether its effects on your life would differ to the last bout Britain went through….

Two more days. Just two more days until the pubs open. Anticipation keeps building for a return to pub life. But when the doors finally do open on Independence Day… how expensive will a pint be? During the lockdown, we’ve…

Happy hump day, reader, To the reader who is asking, I am indeed in need of a shave. But back to that in a minute. I always enjoy looking through my mailbox to read your feedback on my scribblings (for…

We had a hut by the river with my brother Chekaren. We were sleeping. Suddenly we both woke up at the same time. Somebody shoved us. We heard whistling and felt strong wind. Chekaren said, ‘Can you hear all those…

The pubs beckon. Independence Day awaits. Just a few more days… but a busy few, that’s for sure. And as I mentioned last week, we’re about to publish the monthly issue of The Fleet Street Letter Monthly Alert on the…

We’ve been writing about inflation this week. About that brutally destructive force, the bane of savers and investors alike, but especially cruel to the poorest in our society. It’s currently being administered to the everyman in a dose that’s just…

Most of those in political office, quite understandably, are firmly against inflation and firmly in favor of policies producing it. (This schizophrenia hasn’t caused them to lose touch with reality, however; Congressmen have made sure that their pensions – unlike…

1963. The decade that would be remembered as the swinging 60s had begun to earn its namesake. ‘63 saw the release of The Beatles’ first album (Please, Please Me), The Rolling Stones’ first single (a cover of Chuck Berry’s Come…

Make way, dear reader, make way! Make way… For King Benjamin Franklin! Behold, there he strides, in all his greenbacked glory… The US attracts all manner of international condemnation these days – criticism of its culture, of its endless wars…

As lockdown has dragged on and on, some folks have been hankering for a big ol’ fireworks display when it’s finally over. It’s quite understandable, especially for those in high-pressure jobs. Stuck alone indoors breathing stagnant air, you couldn’t really…

My colleague Nickolai Hubble has always told me one of the joys he has in his role in publishing his research is seeing his predictions play out in the news months later. It’s something I expect James Allen has been…

A new week begins, full of central bank announcements from the Bank of England to the Bank of Japan. Right on time too, as volatility appears to be returning to the stockmarket with a vengeance… In today’s episode, Nickolai and…

There’s a lot of trash in the European banks. A lot of loans that shouldn’t have been made. Loans where there hasn’t been a payment of interest or principal for… well, a while. Best not dwell on that. Let’s just…

Why have bankrupt companies become some of the biggest performers in the stockmarket in recent weeks? Could Robinhood, the trading app popular amongst kids in the States, be swooping in to save the day with a bailout of millennial capital?…

“I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law!” – Bugs Bunny in High Diving Hare (1945) You might think that when a company starts exploring the possibility of declaring bankruptcy, that its share price would…

“I do love the beginning of the summer hols,” said Julian. “They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.” “They go so nice and slowly at first,” said Anne, his little sister. “Then they start to gallop.”…

A quick heads up: our broadcast schedule is changing slightly from this week forwards – we’re shifting from a daily broadcast to three per week. With a more streamlined schedule, we hope to provide you with more incisive content going…

Another week of chaos begins… With any luck, we’ll be able to go to the pub again soon – provided we identify as protestors first, of course. How times change. It wasn’t long ago that self-righteous moralists declared that flouting…

“Gold. Gold beyond measure, beyond sorrow and grief… Behold, the great treasure hoard of Thrór! the global ETF market!” – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014, script slightly altered) I wasn’t a big fan of the The…

“We are the good guys. We are on the side of angels.” – Jeff Skilling, slightly less than three years prior to his arrest 2020 just keeps on getting better… Jeff Skilling, the former CEO of Enron who was released…

I’m back at the helm of Capital & Conflict and our daily market broadcasts. It’s been good to take a couple days off and get burned to hell by the impressively strong London sun, and indeed to give you a…

It wasn’t all that long ago that the price of a gold sovereign felt stuck around the £250 mark. Some days it’d be cheaper, some days it’d be more expensive… but between mid-2016 until May last year, the market’s idea…

In the meantime, I’d like to show you a note Akhil Patel recently wrote for his subscribers over at Cycles, Trends and Forecasts. It’s about the historical “war cycle” we discussed on Friday’s market broadcast, a topic both fascinating and…

Well there we have it. As we wrote in Tuesday’s note (The Bond girl, the Cuban icon, and the man from Dixieland), we were watching the dollar for its next move. If it broke higher in value, it’d be bad…

Imagine if the Bank of England started taking to Twitter to make sure we knew what the word recession means – outside of a recession. You might find it strange – ominous, even – that such an institution would suddenly…

Has the storm passed? Are happy days here again? The fella from Cuba with a machete at his waist says so. The Bond girl lounging nearby agrees. But the fella from Dixieland… he’s still got a menacing look in his…

Well here we are [%= :subscriberName(D,Reader) %], Friday again. It doesn’t feel like a week has passed since I was writing to you last Friday. Though longer or shorter, I can’t tell – isolation has made my perception of time…

My perception of time is becoming increasingly distorted by the isolation… but it doesn’t feel all that long since our last bank holiday. Spending every day alone in my flat has made life a blur – as most weeks are…

We had long feared they would come. Watching the monetary corruption spread across foreign lands for so many years now, I guess we all knew, deep down, that they would arrive on British shores eventually. I had hoped we would…

It’s your last chance to celebrate it with a menthol Camel cigarette. From today on, all flavoured cigarettes and rolling tobacco are illegal to sell in this country. Get ‘em while you can. The rationale behind banning menthols is that…

Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve recently took to television to reassure the world that everything is, indeed, under control Gromit. While the Fed is of course the US’s central bank, his words are globally relevant to investors here in…

Well that’s that dear reader – The Halvening has happened. Block 630,000 was mined yesterday just after 8pm. The long-awaited block of transactoions only took 20 seconds in the end. It’ll be another few years before we see the next…

“Realise your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the…

A rather long note today. If you want to get right to The Two Thrones of the global economy, skip down to the next heading. If you want to meander down some rabbit holes with me first, just keep on…

Monday again, and we’re back in business. A new week beckons – and if it’s even a quarter as dramatic as last week, we’re in for a hell of a ride. While the crazy action of last week was contained…

Friday at last… I think. I find it hard to tell these days. All this staying at home has made the days a blur, I wouldn’t have been able to say it was Friday without checking. I often work on…

Too much oil is one thing… but no beer production is something else entirely. Some of the largest breweries in the world are facing a shortage of one crucial element required to brew their nectar. If left unchecked, a beer…

Oil creates the illusion of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free. Oil is a resource that anaesthetises thought, blurs vision, corrupts… – Shah of Shahs, Ryszard Kapuściński (1982) Times have changed an awful lot since 1982….

The oil price in the US began Monday at $12. That’s pretty low. … But that didn’t stop it falling by 300% just a few hours later. Yes, you’re reading that right. The price of the most important commodity in…

I’m taking a short break from hosting our daily market broadcasts this week. My colleague Kit Winder will be hosting it in the meantime, focusing on how the WuFlu will permanently change the energy market. He’s never hosted a podcast…

Nobody wants to talk about this asset… but it’s been performing incredibly well during these wild times. It’s been in a bull market for years now. It wasn’t shook at all during the brutal March we’ve just had – indeed,…

Amid the WuFlu chaos… The escalating and ever more visible Second Cold War… The fiendishly volatile stockmarket… And as we all slowly go insane in isolation… We take a moment here in lockdown to admire something shiny in the sunlight….

“If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.” While this old saying may be true of Marvel films, it sadly does not apply to financial crises. They never arrive exactly the same way as they have in the past –…

Southbank Investment Research is shut today, but with everything going on out there and as it’s Eastertime, I thought we should send out something special in today’s note instead of my normal scribblings. Following the strong feedback we’ve had for…

Happy Easter Monday! I hope you’ve been enjoying the break as much as you can in these circumstances. I’ve been taking the time to get my thoughts in order, do some reading, and listen in to what the folks at…

An old buddy of mine contacted me yesterday asking what stocks he should buy now that the market has turned down. This very same friend contacted me at the very end of the crypto bull market to tell me he…

The ability of a gyroscope to remain stable no matter the forces at play around it has immense value.  That perpetual stability – rain or shine, chaos or serenity – has allowed engineers to create ever more complex systems around…

Who would win in a fight: former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi… or freshly anointed governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey? I asked a few colleagues and contacts which of the central bankers they reckoned…

Somebody just got air-ambulanced nearby. The red chopper flew low over the rooftops with a mighty whirr, closer than any other aircraft I’ve seen whilst living here. All anyone could do is watch it through their windows like some metropolitan…

Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength, fortune, power. – Shah of Shahs, Ryszard Kapuściński (1982) The chart speaks for itself. Source: me, on Twitter…

Is it just me, or did the day the pubs shut feel like an incredibly long time ago for you too? Seems like months since I’ve had a freshly poured pint in my hand. Let me tell you, when this…

Back when WuFlu was just a twinkle in some bat-eating deviant’s eye, I thought it’d be worth giving Seattle a visit. A reassuringly rainy area of the developed world with a strong beer culture and a view of the Pacific…

Remember when some fella attacked the bull sculpture on Wall Street with a banjo last year? We mentioned it in this letter at the time – The banjo player and the bull market golden calf (10 September 2019). We wondered…

You ever watch an American TV show or film and think they overdo it with the music? Just smothering scenes in slow piano when they’re trying to spur emotion in the viewer? I felt that when I was watching an…

I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray, Hooray In Dixieland I’ll take my stand, to live and die in Dixie Away, Away, Away down South in Dixie… – “I Wish I Was in Dixie” (1850s) You wouldn’t expect an old…

I’m sorry for not getting in touch with you about this sooner. What’s going on here is really quite something. Last week I wrote about how the price of precious metals and the cost of actually acquiring them are decoupling,…

Well that was it, dear reader. “Whatever it takes” indeed. Mario Draghi’s statement, which is credited with saving the euro back in the sovereign debt crisis, has been taken to heart – and to market – by the Federal Reserve….

“You’ll find, young man, the future looks rosier through the bottom of a glass.” – The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas With the pubs shut, British investors are going to have a harder time imagining a rosy future – right…

If you’ve been listening to our daily market broadcasts this week, you’ll have heard Charlie Morris’s unbridled optimism in the . To close us off for this week, he penned this note for me recently on what’s going on in…

I asked Tim Price to write today’s Capital & Conflict, as he’s just the man you want in your corner during a market panic like we’re witnessing now. Tim has won awards as a fund manager for his defensive investing style, and…

The US stockmarket was halted just 30 seconds after opening yesterday. Couldn’t even survive a minute before eating a 7% loss. And that was after the Federal Reserve threw the sink at the problem, cutting interest rates to zero and…

The global stockmarket (MSCI World index, three-year chart) gets a front-row seat to a viewing of Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant “Honestly I think every national politician is going to get CV-19. Their lives are a series of meetings like this,…

Let me be frank. By the time you read this, I have no idea where the market will be for almost any asset. The volatility and speed with which they are moving as I write makes it almost impossible to…

It was only a matter of time. The Bank of England (BoE) took it upon itself to cut interest rates, following the Americans’ example of a double-cut, reducing the BoE base rate by 0.5% down to 0.25%. They’re meeting again…

The CNN Fear & Greed index, which gauges the mood in the US stockmarket from utterly terrified at 0, and scandalously greedy at 100, is currently displaying a reading of… four. Fear is in fashion. But so far, the American…

“This is the best goddam drill the army’s ever put on!” – US Navy sailor at Pearl Harbor after the explosions began The bull market is dead. Long live the bull market. That’s the FTSE 100 well into the bear’s…

So you’ve heard of Big Tobacco… Big Oil… Big Pharma… Big Tech… But what about Big Loo Roll? If anybody’s making a mint from the pandemic panic, it’s the toilet paper manufacturers. The Australians are eating each other over Andrex….

The most powerful bank CEO in the world had to have emergency heart surgery yesterday. I don’t blame him. I was going to write to you about something different today, but the level of sheer stress writhing within the financial…

“How did he die?”  “Your contact?” Mr Market?” *nods* “Not well.” – Casino Royale, opening scene (mildly edited) It’s “No Time to Die”… or to risk losing Chinese box office revenue. I may well be proven wrong on this, but…

Another day, another dollar CEO decides they don’t want to be responsible for what happens next. This time it’s the man at the helm of Harley-Davidson ($HOG) who’s joined the group of easy-rider executives cruising into the sunset. What happens…

Many years ago, a lady by the name of Leslie Shook was contacted by a stranger who told her that she’d saved his life. She wasn’t the creator of some new wonder drug. Nor had she recently donated an organ,…

“Artist’s impression” of the global stockmarket after we buy everything the Shoshan-Hubble Inter-market Transnational Easing Scheme of 2020 is implemented and a BoE-financed foreign acquisition boom begins The British Empire, with its pink map and territory equivalent to the surface…

He had killed six men during the past month—or was it a year?—he had forgotten. Time had become curiously telescoped lately. What did it matter, anyway? He knew he had to die some time and had long ago ceased to…

Were you taught about this at school? Source: britishempire.co.uk This likely reveals a lot about my age, but I only discovered that maps of the British Empire were illustrated in pink relatively recently. For those as uninformed as myself, this…

Today’s letter comes from Eoin Treacy, who wanted to expand on a crucial flaw in the UK economy which he believes will drive. It all comes down to a simple metric so basic that’s it’s often overlooked – despite its…

In November 2008, in the churning black depths of the global credit crisis, Prime Minister Gordon Brown decided it was time for a trip. Leaving the winter weather and Downing Street behind, he charted a course for sunnier, sandier climes,…

What lethal goods were Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair all keen on selling to one particular client while they were in Downing Street? The three make for strange company. But their political differences – Wilson’s price fixing, Thatcher’s…

It’s that time again. Time for beer where beer is due – to a switched-on subscriber who can crack the investment theme that answers a riddle. But this time, we’re trying something slightly different. I’m not going to ask you…

Have you watched Treadstone on Amazon Prime by any chance? It’s a spin-off TV series from the Jason Bourne series of films. It’s not quite the same as watching Matt Damon pulverise legions of CIA/FSB foes without any equipment, but…

I’ve something special for you this fine Sunday. While you don’t normally receive my daily notes here at Capital & Conflict over the weekend, today we’re making an exception – we’ve received some valuable intelligence straight from “Corona-land” that’s worthy…

King of Thieves, released in 2018, is a film about the Hatton Garden heist that took place three years prior.   It had a lot going for it when it was released, with an all-star cast led by Michael Caine.   However,…

This chart may not look all that important… Source: Bloomberg  … but it is. Let me tell you why. That line represents the amount of gold held by certain investors.  It’s just hit an all-time high – an important story…

Cats and dogs litter the pavement. Their small fluffy bodies are contorted into unnatural positions, limp and lifeless. A rumour went around that pets might be carriers for the coronavirus, and their owners threw them from their apartment windows high…

There are always wars of opinion within the investment community – it’s a difference in views that makes a market after all. The more long term the issue is, the more likely you will find a binary split where two…

What I’m about to share with you is something subscribers to The Fleet Street Letter Monthly Alert asked us to make public. While I normally enjoy my job, what I’m about to link to in today’s note has most certainly…

Our ride on the “₿ullet Train” continues. This sure as hell isn’t a sleeper journey – if you doze off on this ride it might wipe you out… The bitcoin price over the last few days has been going at…

Between 3pm and 6.30pm on Monday, three and a half billion quid’s worth of BTC was transacted over the bitcoin blockchain. Nobody knows who it was or what it was for. And as every transaction verified by the bitcoin miners…

So the Chinese Communist Party ram £130 billion worth of stimulus into its financial system in a day… It makes it illegal for major shareholders in companies to sell any stock for six months… It straight up bans people from…

What connects a monument in the Czech Republic… David Bowie… A romance involving a pigeon… The ancestor of the “Marine Lizards” prowling the South China Sea… And an investment of several million dollars (in today’s terms) by JP Morgan in…

“What is it?” “It’s a pie machine, you idiot. Chickens go in, pies come out.” “Ooh, what kind of pies?” “Apple.” “My favourite!” “Chicken pies, you great lummox. Imagine: in less than a fortnight, every grocers’ in the county will…

What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple? Being eaten by it. And I’m not talking about the worm.   Bigger than BMW… Volkswagen… Daimler… Adidas… Lufthansa… Siemens… and 24 other titans of the German economy… $AAPL is now bigger…

As strange great swell of sea foam floods through the streets of a town in Catalonia… As warming weather leads to “exceptional breeding conditions” for locusts, and terrible swarms ravage East Africa, threatening famine… As cases of the coronavirus are…

Well that was quick! I was going to send through some additional doctored photographs, but several of you figured it out right away… Yesterday I asked you what historical event brought a motley crew including commodity traders, a US business…

It may be Monday… but that doesn’t mean it isn’t beer o’clock. Don’t worry, I’m not downing pints of Guinness at my desk this fine morning (though that does sound delightful). No, it’s time I put a bottle of my…

A truck chugs slowly through a street in Shanghai, spewing bulbous great clouds of disinfectant powder into tower upon tower of apartment buildings. It’s like the crop duster scene from North by Northwest. Except instead of taking place in a…

If you saved $10,000 (£7,600) a day… … every day… … since the pyramids in Egypt were constructed… … you would now have one fifth the average wealth… … of the world’s five wealthiest people. So says a report called…

A reader responds to our letter on Friday… Highly prophetic that you should write “guard your car” – someone has just had the catalytic converter off my mother’s car as it sat outside her house in West London. You guys…

What will a cocktail of market forces and climate change taste like, when they’re shaken together by a politico with a righteous twist of regulation? While this drink has yet to reach the global market, it is possible to get…

I hated my name when I was a teenager. I despised hearing “… What?” whenever I introduced myself, and didn’t like standing out during my formative years. In fact, I abhorred “Boaz” so much, that when I spent a year…

“Who do you think buys the stones I bring out? Dreamy American girls who want a storybook wedding and a big shiny rock just like the ones they see in the advertisements in your politically correct magazines. So, please, don’t…

Of the many brilliant Calvin and Hobbes comic strips penned by the great Bill Watterson, there is one which aptly describes our direction this week. Six-year-old Calvin feels that technology has separated humans from nature. And so while out walking…

Ayn Rand famously declared that “We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality”. Escaping reality is big business, and likely always will be. Even during Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan cultural purges, people still risked going to…

How should one best prepare for long-term success? Get on the housing ladder as soon as you can scrape together a deposit? Should you invest in your appearance, to make better first impressions in your professional life? Maybe amplify a…

Yesterday, we speculated that the US is turning Russian. We weren’t referring to any of the “Trump is a Russian asset” hysteria of course – we were referring to how the energy market has changed the US’s temperament. When it…

“Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own” goes the advice of Baron Rothschild, sharing an investment lesson he learned brutally during the chaotic tumult of the 18th century. … or at least, that’s…

Well here we are dear xXreaderXx, We’re one week into 2020. And what a year it’s turning out to be so far. The US embassy in Baghdad being stormed by militia… an IRGC general getting droned by the Americans in…

Welcome to this edition of Investing Lessons Learned the Hard Way. In this series, we ask each of our editors a simple question: What is the single most important piece of advice you could give to investors? Find out what…

Something a little unusual to go in today’s episode of our 20/20 Vision series. You see, normally it’s me interviewing our editors on video – but this time, the tables have been turned – and it’s me being grilled this…

Well here we are: another Christmas beckons. A lot of us at Southbank Investment Research will be heading back home next week to spend Christmas with friends and family – myself included. But don’t worry – we’ve lined up plenty…

Apple ($AAPL) has seen a 30% drop in sales, year-on-year, in 2019. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking this might lead to a similar drop in its share price – it’s an entirely reasonable assumption. But I’m afraid that’s not…

Welcome to this edition of Investing Lessons Learned the Hard Way. In this series, we ask each of our editors a simple question: What is the single most important piece of advice you could give to investors? Find out what…

In today’s episode of our 20/20 Vision series, I bring you Tim Price, award-winning defensive investor and free market firebrand. In this interview, he lays out his investment philosophy, and answers your questions on investment strategy and how to prepare…

In today’s episode of our 20/20 Vision series, I’ve brought in our energy expert James Allen. An unashamed renewables bull, James has taken some of the negative press green energy took in 2019 on the chin, and lays out his…

Today’s edition of 20/20 Visions comes from our tech and trading expert Eoin Treacy. It’s an extraordinary mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. And Eoin also takes some time to answer a few reader questions, which you…

Today’s edition of 20/20 Vision comes from our former HSBC fund manager and Grenadier Guard, Charlie Morris. While the rest of us have ideologies and investment strategies to guide us, Charlie seems to rely on his experience and research. He’s…

In today’s episode of 20/20 Vision, I sit down with my good friend and colleague Nickolai Hubble to discuss what the coming year has in store for investors (we let our video production go nuts with the background). In our…

In today’s episode of our 20/20 Vision series, I’ve something special for you – a gentleman “old school” Southbank Investment Research readers in particular will remember and appreciate. The founder of our business, Dan Denning, was in town recently, and…

Today’s edition of 20/20 Vision comes from our trend following experts Robin Griffiths and Rashpal Sohan. They use a rules-based model to make investment decisions, taking the guesswork and human error out of the mix. Instead of a Q&A format,…

Today’s edition of 20/20 Vision comes from our tech and crypto expert Sam Volkering. I’ve known Sam for about seven years. I remember him talking about bitcoin before I knew it existed. He also anticipated what he calls the “crypto…

“Can you give me a good reason one person should have a BILLION dollars??” Some questions produce more questions than they do answers. That question comes from Peter Daou, a politico formerly in the employ of John Kerry and Hillary…

Nick O’Connor here. Usually I write to you about your money, the markets or world events. But not today. Today, I’m getting in touch simply to wish you a happy Christmas. However you’re spending the holiday, I hope you find…

Behold: the great waves of global investment flows are returning to Britain’s drying shores. Source: The Market Ear The removal of “Corbyn risk” and BoJo’s unchallenged control over the Brexit process now has cash pouring back into the country like…

The “Santa Claus rally”, a recurring trend where stocks tend to go up as the end of the year draws near, appears to be arriving on schedule, with Boris Johnson loading the sleigh. I freely admit it: what happened on…

“We have been striking for over a year, and basically nothing has happened. – Greta Thunberg The world’s most valuable listed company was born yesterday – right as its polar opposite made the front page of Time magazine.   I’ve…

Brexit continues to deliver sterling results – in the most unexpected of places. You may well be familiar with some of the strong economic gains the UK has reaped since 2016: low unemployment, wage growth, interest rates above zero and…

Yesterday I wrote to you about Xinjiang, and the incredible things that are happening there. Mass confinement in re-education camps for over one million Uighur Muslims. Children separated from their parents. Total surveillance infrastructure in place to monitor ever word…

I’m with Boaz. The US/China fallout will not end with a trade deal. I think the US/China conversation is only just beginning. I’m going to look at two things, today and tomorrow, which highlight why the trade war is merely…

As the end of the year draws closer, we’re preparing some festive content for Capital & Conflict readers which we hope to share with you over Christmas and Hogmanay. I’ll be hosting a short video series with our editors, to…

The next issue of The Fleet Street Letter Monthly Alert drops tomorrow. As I mentioned yesterday, myself, Nickolai Hubble and Charlie Morris will all be issuing our predictions as to what will happen next year. As we’re in a festive…

It’ll be a short note from me today. I’m currently writing this month’s editorial for The Fleet Street Letter Monthly Alert. Charlie Morris, Nickolai Hubble and I are all submitting three predictions for 2020, and how to profit if we’re…

The governments of the world are in debt to the tune of £46 trillion. When you include unfunded liabilities like state pensions and welfare, the figure is much higher. And with politicos unlikely to break the habit of spending other…

If you’ve been reading this letter for a while, you’ll likely know I often compare events occurring now to those that have occurred in the past. My Cold War II thesis is probably the biggest example of this, though in…

Promising plunder was as much a skill for a pirate raising a crew back in the early 1700s as it is today for a politician. However, while pirate captains had literal skin in the game, losing their captaincy and often…

There are some phrases you should always be wary of when you hear them. “I trust you to do the right thing…” “I’m not telling you what to do, but…”  “In the end it’s your decision, but…” “This is not…

Will Rogers, the old-school American actor and humourist, once advised: “Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.” What…

Remember, we are actively competing with nations who openly cut interest rates so that now many are actually getting paid when they pay off their loan, known as negative interest. Who heard of such a thing? Give me some of…

At the beginning of last year, a member of Trump’s National Security Council leaked a deck of PowerPoint slides to the press which had been presented to senior Whitehouse officials. In order to counter the rise of China, the presentation…

Considering the amount of press garnered by China’s Silk Road project in recent years, it’s surprising how little attention was paid to the US’s announcement that it was launching a Silk Road of its own earlier this month. The Silk…

I read a lot of comic books when I was a kid. Many of them were published in the States, and so they contained ads targeted at young Americans. I enjoyed seeing what the ads were like over the pond…

It seems our investing opportunities are running out, dear XXC&CsubXX. We wanted in on the yacht industry – more QE = more wealth inequality, we argued – and keenly anticipated the initial public offering (IPO) of Italian yacht builder Ferretti….

Remember this thing? A screen that never cracked…   A battery life that lasted for days… Required no updates required. An actually finished tech product right off the shelf (perfection requires no improvement, as the Russians say of the Lada)……

In today’s letter, I’m going to tell you about that heavily relied upon (though rarely acknowledged or appreciated) force underpinning the global economy that I’ve been referring to over the last couple of days. More importantly, I’ll tell you why…

What do you make of this thing? Looks like a UFO to me: Source: Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design That’s a superyacht concept from a design firm called Sinot. 112m in length, with all the goodies one would expect inside,…

What do horse asses, a 1.5 mile tunnel in Staffordshire, the Space Shuttle, and the price of oil all have in common? I wrote yesterday how the peace of “the post-Cold War order” (as Tony Blair would put it) bred…

A few days after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Tony Blair sent a note to George W. Bush titled “The Fundamental Goal”. “This is the moment when you can define international priorities for the next generation – the…

Our investing strategy has been scuppered. It’s been holed beneath the waterline. A favoured stock we were watching has been scuttled in the harbour before it ever took to the high seas… A little over a month ago we were…

How suddenly it seems the nights draw in at this time of year. Like Ernest Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy, the days seem to get shorter gradually, and then all at once. A few years ago in an interview, the hedge…

I got a new hoodie recently: bright blue, with orange details and a massive “Gulf Oil” logo printed on the back and breast (I say “I” got it: my girlfriend is credited with the procurement). As we’ve detailed in previous…

My tip for future investments. Funeral directors. Add in a few extras such as alternatives to burying or burning and you are onto a winner. For traditionalists, investment in land suitable for cemeteries. For those of the burning kind, super…

November already, huh? It feels like this year has flown by even faster than the last. With the nights drawing in and the Christmas trees nearly upon us, it’ll soon be time to reflect on the past year. How will…

It’s a bit like watching the national debt go up. Except the other way around. Source: nbim.no That’s the homepage for Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, the trillion-dollar beast of an investment portfolio born of the country’s oil revenues. While the…

I’ve never been to California, but I’m reliably informed that those who hail from the state are not known for their subtlety. With that in mind, it’s fitting that when Mark Zuckerberg showed up before Congress to testify on his…

It‘ll be a short note from me today. I’m currently working with Charlie Morris over at The Fleet Street Letter on a new project: a comprehensive guide to valuing Bitcoin, for speculative or long term investing purposes. The Bitcoin market…

Have thieves snuck under your car, ripped out its catalytic converter and harvested its innards yet? No? Well if I were you I’d be getting very protective of that grimy box under the chassis… for the precious metal within it…

“We rebuilt China over the past 25 years… But those days are over… No longer will America’s leaders hope that economic engagement alone will transform Communist China’s authoritarian state into a free and open society that respects private property, the…

Sometimes, you have to laugh. I know I did. Source: DW The news that the German defence minister suggested sending the emaciated German military into Syria, to provide the illusion that the EU can project power abroad, was quite something….

Or at least, that’s how nuclear Armageddon would have looked like in the “olden days”… That was the playbook for the last Cold War, produced by the Nuclear Threat Initiative over in the US, giving an illustration of just how…

Thursday could be one for the history books. I won’t beat around the bush. Let me tell you why I think an event that day is worthy of your attention, be you an investor or an observer with an interest…

In the wealthier countries around the Persian Gulf, gold can be eaten in all manner of ways. Injected into soups, dusted over fries, flaked on pizza, frosted on muffins… some hotels have to buy kilos of gold leaf every year…

I’d been meaning to tell you about this for a while, but hadn’t got around to it. I’ve been working on a new project here at Southbank Investment Research with Nickolai Hubble. It’s called the Daily Blitz. It’s not a…

On 24 January this year, an individual known by the online handle “Grubles” was woken early in the morning to the sound of thunder and rain outside. Half asleep, they rushed to make sure a small computer plugged into a…

As the Greek government is paid to borrow money, eight years after being charged credit card rates… As the Federal Reserve starts printing $60 billion a month, but refuses to call it quantitative easing… And while the Dutch central bank…

“You Americans don’t smoke anymore. You live long, dull, uninteresting lives.”  – Black Hawk Down A Blackhawk helicopter over Iraq. Source: WikiCommons It’s strange to think that once January comes around, all the kids born in this country when Black…

It’s a rare occasion in the office when several of our editors are around at once, and I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Eoin Treacy and Sam Volkering, who spend their working lives analysing the future of…

“That’s funny. That plane’s dusting crops where there ain’t no crops.” – North by Northwest (1959) Source: WikiCommons If Hollywood ever churns out a modern-day reboot of North by Northwest, it’ll be a drone that hares after the protagonist in…

In the previous stages in the Atlas Mountains, I could always see the tire tracks of my competitors in the dirt in front of me. But right now, in the golden Sahara sand, I could not find any tire tracks….

I hope you enjoyed Kit Winder’s note yesterday. I was working on the latest issue of Zero Hour Alert last week, and I’m just getting caught up now. It was worth it though – that issue is a winner. Using…

This week I finished watching season one of Top Boy, the Channel 4 and now Netflix drama. It’s only four episodes, but packs a hefty punch. One of its most powerful images is of a couple of the main characters…

When Sotheby’s got bought out earlier in the year I was disappointed, as its shares were one of the few ways the everyman could receive a dividend from the central banks. As I wrote in QE for the auctioneer (16…

Well now it’s official. The People’s Republic of China has made it past the Soviet Union. The USSR died at 69. The PRC has made it to 70. But with the US now raising its shotgun, for how much longer…

For the last couple of weeks, Nickolai Hubble has been furtively sneaking into the studio, not telling anybody what he’s in there for. Such behaviour is in some regards, to be expected; Nickolai has a reputation for being the office’s…

Making connections and recognising patterns where none actually exist is a risk all investors face. As humans, we’re hard-wired to do it. After all, our ancestors who didn’t make connections – like linking the sound of leaves rustling to the…

Over the last couple of days, the UK government has been doing something it never has before: selling bitcoin. It’s not doing it to bring about greater BTC adoption of course. Nor is this an attempt to suppress its price….

Well thar she blows again! A whale has surfaced once more in the bitcoin market – and this time, it’s caused even more of a stir. Though it’s disturbed the water, I’m not so worried; over the long term the…

Have you ever heard of Camel City? Its official name is Winston-Salem. It’s over the pond in North Carolina, and earned its nickname from being the base of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company – creator of Camel cigarettes. Nearly…

Now we are ready to sail for the horn Weigh, hey, roll and go Our boots and our clothes boys are all in the pawn To be rollicking randy dandy-o… Sea shanties, like financial data, can be quite hard to…

A friend recently recommended me a book. A must-read to understand the direction of economic sentiment in the US, apparently. It’s called The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing by Frances Coppola. She is not the director of Apocalypse Now, by…

Yesterday I spent the night in a hotel with my wife and son. The reason was that we had an early appointment at the Australian High Commission in the Strand and figured we’d ‘make a day of it’. Our appointment…

I first visited New York City a couple of years ago. I was there to attend my brother’s wedding, but it was scheduled close to my birthday, so I took a few extra days off to see more of what…

The capital of Cuba likely isn’t the city that springs to mind when you think of a bustling stock exchange. But on the dusty streets of Old Havana, there’s still one standing there. The Lonja del Comercio building in Old…

“Eureka!” cries Archimedes, rising from his bathtub. Sculpture of Archimedes outside Manchester University. Source: flickr He’d just discovered how displacement works. That the volume of water displaced when he entered the bath must be equal to the volume of his…

There’s something happening here. What it is, ain’t exactly clear. There’s a man with a gun over there, Telling me I got to beware. I think it’s time we stop, Children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down… –…

“I reached pension age and then I ran out of money. So it occurred to me – perhaps I could live for free if I lived in jail. So I took a bicycle and rode it to the police station…

“Investing in today’s surreal world calls for the experienced eye of the Profit Hunter.” So read an ad for Artemis Investment Management on the side of a black cab. I noticed it as I was heading back into work after…

One cold December night in 1989, a man drove a lorry into Wall Street. He was there to commit a crime he’d spent two years preparing for – ever since the stockmarket crash of Black Monday in 1987. As he…

A few weeks back in this letter (Fear is in fashion –19 August), we declared that with the financial commentariat becoming so bearish, that it was high time we got a melt-up. However, if a global recession accompanied by a…

Less than 5% of all bonds yield more than 5%. Pension funds need 7% to break even, assuming they are funded (most aren’t). Thus, almost all Pension Funds are fighting an impossible battle to meet future obligations. They Broke The…

What asset performs well in an era of deglobalisation? As luck would have it, beer. Or at least, beer made in certain areas. A few months back, a South Korean court ruled that Japanese companies must pay compensation to Korean…

This weekend I finished reading a great book. A friend recommended it a year or two ago, and I finally got round to it. When Genius Failed is its name. It reads a bit like Barbarians at the Gate, that…

Now we buy bonds for capital appreciation, and stocks for yield! – Kyle Bass, hedge fund manager Outside the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt stands a massive artificial tree. Named “Gravity and Growth”, this sculpture built of brass and…

I only found out how the scoring worked in cricket about a month ago. Cricket isn’t taught much in Scotland for reasons which may have something to do with the weather. I think the only time I was ever taught…

There’s nothing quite like a nice suspension of Parliament to weaken a currency. If you’ve been trading the pound, I hope you made the right call this morning. The strength of the pound relative to the dollar from late last…

Though the year 2019 will not go down as one in which you finally began to earn some decent interest at the bank, it will at least go down as one which produced some exceptional political theatre. Who would’ve thought…

… we have begun a bull market in the world ‘control’ and a long bear market in the word ‘market’. Whether spoken in French, German or Bulgarian – ‘controle’, ‘steurung’ or ‘kontrole’ – all lead to the same thing: a…

We argued on Monday that now everybody is expecting a bear market, it’s unlikely we’ll see one arrive anytime soon. In fact, with everybody on the bearish side of the boat, we think one final, painful, cathartic hurrah may be…

Donald Trump’s mastery of Twitter to bypass the media and control political narratives is unprecedented, and will go down in history as a symbol of our time.  We’ve argued in this letter before that his Twitter feed contains glimpses of…

Who’d have thought that we’d see Carlsberg encourage abstinence this year? A brewery discouraging the consumption of booze? Sure is wild. But as we noted a couple months back (Theatre of the absurd, 25 June), 2019 is feeling very much…

June Carter: Well, go on down to Jackson; go ahead and wreck your health. Go play your hand you big-talkin’ man, make a big fool of yourself, You’re goin’ to Jackson; go comb your hair! Johnny Cash: Honey, I’m gonna…

If the world enters a recession in the near future, it will be one of the most well-predicted events in economic history. All over the press, from Bloomberg, to the Financial Times, to the Economist, to CNN and the Guardian,…

“This has to be the biggest single week for UK aerospace since at least the Cold War” – Steve Trimble, defence editor of Aviation Week in late July Last month, a permanent new department in the Ministry of Defence was…

Investing in a country “because it’ll be the next great empire” isn’t a thesis you hear every day. It certainly makes for a welcome break from the normal reasons, like low inflation and unemployment, decent demographics, etc. But hedge fund…

The Apollo 11 programme was developed faster than a next-generation iPhone. Why? I think it’s all about risk. The perception of risk – or perhaps I should say the feeling of fear – changes everything. Feeling like something is at…

As the US’s fresh batch of hypersonic weapons approaches the flight-testing phase… As a nuclear-powered missile test in Russia goes horribly awry… And as an Australian MP compares his country’s obliviousness to the threat of China as the French were…

Pub quiz (I know it’s a Monday, but humour me). As the pound gets wrecked… as German manufacturing is beaten with a shovel… and as the wheels fall off the Chinese economy (HengFeng marks the third Chinese bank in as…

Sometimes I’ll hear folks talk about trade and economic issues as separate from national security. Let’s make no mistake about it: China’s capacity, the People’s Liberation Army’s capacity to do exactly what they’re doing is a direct result of the…

“America’s predicament is tantamount to that of the Soviet Union”, runs the front page headline of a Chinese newspaper. “The American Empire is abandoning the values that have been regarded as its standard, such as the family and religion. And…

We wrote yesterday how mainstream investors have grown complacent to geopolitical issues thanks to decades of US dominance. They meet the rapidly developing Cold War between the US and China with a shrug. What better way to wake ‘em up…

We mentioned previously in this letter (“Crack Pipe”, 12/06/2019) that if the yuan cracked 7 against the dollar, that bitcoin would boom. That happened yesterday – and as expected bitcoin is taking off.  Cold War II is heating up –…

The world’s most important central banker has managed to cut interest rates, end quantitative tightening, and disappoint markets. Jerome Powell is truly a man of many talents. … though not nearly so multi-talented as the leader of the free world….

If you want to sell high inflation to voters as a positive thing, you’re gonna need a damn compelling narrative. It just so happens that such a narrative is being developed and distributed. A narrative that the millennials – who’re…

“Everybody would like a little more inflation…” – Christine Lagarde We dwelt yesterday on the divisions that have emerged between the millennial and boomer generations. The rifts that have emerged, especially since the credit crisis, have mostly been contained to…

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. – Friedrich Nietzsche The young and old appear to be at an impasse. Divided by wealth, divided by politics. Which rift caused the other? It’s arguable that the difference in…

The rain was a welcome reprieve over the weekend after the baking heat last week. This summer’s temperature has certainly given the press plenty to write about, and the Extinction Rebellion crowd cause to litter Central London with stickers. But…

Trivia time. If you had to guess, when in history do you think this happened in the UK and the US? Earlier optimism about a progressive future gave way to a jazz-age nihilism and a pervasive cynicism about high ideals……

“It’s never a good time to be poor, but now is a really bad time to be rich.” Steve Diggle, a hedge fund manager said that in a Real Vision interview back in 2014. On the face of it, this…

In the early 1900s, a radical new idea was born, blossoming in ivory towers and high society. War, it became popular to believe, had been made obsolete. This strange idea, to be proved so awfully incorrect, was thanks to the…

Last week, we drew a comparison between the state of the bond market and Apocalypse Now. I’m not the only one here at Southbank Investment Research to have made the comparison. Tim Price over at The Price Report has his…

Kit Winder here. Boaz is away and so I’ve come to write to you about a remarkable event last Sunday. Easy like Sunday mornin’ I woke up like any other Sunday, relatively early. But for me, this Sunday was a…

Thanks for reading my offer to send you our gold investing USB device. As a ‘thank you’ for taking the time to consider it… I’m giving you access to one of the reports from the device for free: It’s called:…

I was sent an email yesterday asking me what I think will happen in the next global economic downturn. By the senders reckoning, we’ll be “pretty screwed” he explained, as interest rates are still close to zero since the last…

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body….

Captain Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound. Colonel Kurtz: Are my methods unsound? Captain Willard: I don’t see any method at all, sir. – Apocalypse Now, 1979 The horror. Data courtesy…

What a week it’s been. Yesterday, Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve told the Senate Banking Committee that they should not assume that the US dollar will remain the world’s reserve currency, and that bitcoin was a store of value…

I’ve something special for you today. A few weeks back, I noted that silver was barely stirring when gold began roaring in June. Yesterday, Charlie Morris over at The Fleet Street Letter gave his insights on the precious metals market…

There’s always some shoot-out or other going on in that wild west of finance otherwise known as the crypto market. Yesterday, protestors swarmed the headquarters of TRON, a major crypto project in Beijing, and police were called in to intervene….

Your usual author Boaz is still away, and so today I’ve got a special issue for you. Earlier this week, a major milestone was reached in Brazil, where a solar power project was auctioned off at the lowest price ever…

If Mark Carney is ever hanged (by the government at least), it will be with a silk rope. This exemption from hemp rope is not a job benefit that comes with running the Bank of England. It’s an esoteric privilege…

“Not all EU civil servants are overpaid, some (for instance some contractors) are not, and many work hard.” – The Open Europe think tank Hello again [%= :subscriberName(D,Reader) %], Boaz Shoshan here. I hope you’ve been finding Kit Winder’s editorial…

February 1814 was the last time London had an ice fair. The river Thames froze over, and a four day party ensued. There was ice skating, gin drinking, and even roasted oxen under Blackfriars Bridge. This may seem like a…

Today I want to look at an incredibly broad theme: demographics. I’ve heard a few people lately comparing our current situation in the West with Japan in the 1990s. Japan experienced a huge boom and bust, and deflation plagued it…

Tim Price shared an interesting story during our quarterly conference call for those subscribed to The Price Report – an investing “war story” if you like. Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, Tim had a meeting with…

We took a quick look at gold yesterday, which has recently belted higher all across the globe. After writing that note, I got the opportunity to speak to fund manager and gold bug Tim Price about the recent move. Though…

Down, down, down… and then all of a sudden UP all at once. This is a rather esoteric chart, but one I’ve become increasingly interested in over time: What this chart displays is what’s known as the “implied volatility” of…

2019 is beginning to feel an awful lot like 2016. Just as then, heralded by stalling global growth and low inflation figures, the central banker’s nightmare – deflation – is back. The same dynamics are playing out – the prices…

I was wrong. Bitcoin did not hit $10,000 by midnight on Friday. I was too bullish by 40 minutes: BTC reclaimed the $10k territory at twenty to one on Saturday morning. But once it hit the $10k handle, it was…

Will bitcoin hit $10k by midnight tonight? It’s at $9,600 as I write this, up more than 400 bucks since yesterday morning – and if recent weekends are any guide, the psychological $10k level may well be on the horizon….

Yesterday, we took a look at Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to become a central banker, launching a form of “world money” called Libra. Libra will essentially be an exchange-traded fund (ETF). It’ll hold a diverse basket of currencies and short-term government…

Almost two years ago in Southbank Investment Daily, I speculated that Mark Zuckerberg was slyly setting the foundations for a US presidential run. After hiring Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign manager (“change you can believe in” still brings a cynical…

I had this one stock waiting in the wings, which I was dying to recommend when the conditions were just right. But as luck would have it, just as those conditions are arriving… I can no longer recommend it. The…

I woke up Sunday morning bleary eyed, after a late evening at a beer festival in Hackney. Upon checking my phone, I let out an exclamation that had my girlfriend yelling from across the room to ask me what was…

There were long and winding queues at the ticket machines for the metro in Hong Kong yesterday. The Hongkongers, who’d normally use their plastic “Octopus” cards to pay for public transport (similar to Oyster cards in London), instead wanted paper…

State seizure of private wealth in the UK is something I expect we’ll see a lot more of in coming years. The recently launched unexplained wealth orders (UWOs), which permits the National Crime Agency to seize your assets if it’s…

It’ll be a short note from me today – I’ve just returned from a short holiday, and am still getting properly caught up. It’s been good to “unplug” from screens for a while, and I highly recommend it. It does…

“How could it be that the economy which is leading the world, that was on top of the world in 1950, that after half a century of more patents, more professors, more scientists, more engineers, more everything that you could…

I hope you enjoyed part I of my conversation with Dan Denning yesterday. Today we continue on with part II, the latter half, where we discussed the causes of Cold War II between the US and China, the 2020 presidential…

Long-time readers of Southbank Investment Research will remember Dan Denning, our erstwhile publisher and the former writer of this very letter. Dan was back in town recently, having been on adventure all around the globe looking for “boltholes” where liberty…

You could almost draw this chart with a setsquare. Investors in Deutsche Bank have been reminded once again that just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Trust is a damn rare commodity these days, and $DB, one of…

At 0%, Bitcoin has a higher yield than government bonds in 18 countries whose central banks are attempting to debase their currencies and inflate asset prices. In unrelated news, Bitcoin is up 112% year-to-date. – Charlie Bilello, on Twitter That’s…

In yesterday’s note, I made the case that the crypto boom of 2017 was the product of post-crisis monetary policy. Investors, forced to take more risk due to the low returns found in traditional assets, reached for yield in the…

Yesterday we took a look at bitcoin’s abrupt spike upwards over the weekend. Today, let’s investigate what has so suddenly woken the crypto market. This is not the product of retail investor exuberance which characterised the grand bull run of…

Look into the camera. Hold the sign up in front of you. Keep the sign there, and now turn your head to the left. And now to the right. Good. Getting your mugshots taken in this manner feels like you’re…

Optimism. Devotion. Confusion. Scepticism. Outright hatred… Cryptocurrencies bring out a wide spectrum of responses from investors. Their recent arrival in the investment world has been divisive, as some dismiss their existence, while the optimists look for fundamentals that can be…

Back in 2008, only one EU member managed to keep its economy growing. The one that doesn’t have the euro, and doesn’t want it any more. The logic is simple. Your own currency gives you your own exchange rate. If…

Do you like the idea of spending the rest of 2019 making good money from a repeatable trading strategy that’s very easy to follow? Then I recommend you sign-up for the new trading workshop being held by Adrian and the…

Nickolai, my son, Europe is at an end. Please stay in NZ and build yourself a future there. Lots of love, Mum And so that’s how my honeymoon ended. In the Auckland Airport transit area. With a reminder of what…

Imagine an investment that made you rich… and made you feel like the planet’s saviour? A winning combination, right? Great investment gains plus a higher self-esteem… who wouldn’t invest? It’s a Prozac investment play. I think I’ve found what could…

Whatever your opinion on climate change, its increasing presence in political discourse is set to continue. The consequences of this – how governments decide to interfere in the economy in the name of climate change – is tricky to predict,…

It’ll be a short note from me today. We have a guest in the office this week, our former publisher no less, who’s come over from New Zealand for a brief visit. Long-time subscribers to Capital & Conflict will remember…

I had almost forgotten the madness of the crypto market. In late 2017 I was endlessly squinting at my monitor to make sure I hadn’t misread the figures I was seeing – the sudden changes in price were so extreme….

Ben Bernanke, who was chair of the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis, glowingly referred to his actions as “The Courage to Act”. This form of “courage”, likely also felt by those orchestrating the invasion of Iraq or the suppression…

Further to our musings on energy this week, I’d like to introduce you to one of our editors who thinks crunch time is approaching for the Gulf oil powers. Eoin Treacy is of the opinion that Saudi Arabia in particular,…

Earlier this week, I asked your thoughts on what the future holds for Saudi Arabia, oil, and energy in general. Thank you to all who wrote in, it’s been great to hear your predictions and stories on the topic. On…

Larry Kudlow, former television host and now director of the National Economic Council over in the US, recently appeared in a video on the official White House Twitter account, in which he proudly exclaimed in a prepared statement: “Wow. Low…

In 2005, two men made a bet over the phone. They both chipped in $5,000, with the winner to take the ten grand, plus interest earned on 1 January 2011. It became known as “the $10,000.00 question”, and gained a…

In these uncertain times it’s quite a claim to make that the biggest boom of all time is just around the corner. But my study of market cycles leads me to this conclusion. The data is unambiguous. How can I…

Over the last three days I have written a lot about land and economic cycles. (By the way, if you want to access my work on an ongoing basis for a big discount, just use this link.) Anyone who studies…

A couple of years ago, I attended a three-day seminar with the forbidding title “A Practical History of Financial Markets”. While 72 hours on financial market history may not be everyone’s cup of tea, to a student of market cycles…

15 September 2008. Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest US investment bank, files for bankruptcy, sending shock waves around the world. Markets are in a panic. The ensuing rout sees the Dow Jones Industrial Average experience the largest single-day drops in…

Today and next week, you’re in for something special. If I told you that net household wealth around the globe would double by 2026, would you believe me? To clarify, by net household wealth, that’s the value of everything owned…

Connor-Whitlock here. Boaz is working on the latest issue of Zero Hour Alert today, so he’s handed me the reins to Capital & Conflict. Now, before we get started, full disclosure: I have given up with Brexit. I mean that…

Scrolling through my Twitter feed over the long weekend I came across something curious. Now curiosities, are of course, par for the course on Twitter (which is why I imagine a lot of folks use it), but this one stood…

US oil exports are a success story of the past decade. They are a function of new drilling technology, record average annual oil prices post-2008, cheap capital post-2008, and one last (but greatly-underappreciated) factor: The US government sanctioning cheaper oil…

Wishing you a very Happy Easter from all of us here at Southbank Investment Research! Hopefully you’ll be spending this long weekend with family and friends (in the sunshine if we’re lucky). But if you get a spare moment, I’ve…

Hope you’ve been having a great Easter. And I hope you enjoyed part I of my conversation with James Allen on the possibility of a “Crude Credit Crunch” (if you’ve not watched it yet, you can see it here). James…

Even assuming future annual increases are only one-third that of what they were in 2018, [American oil production] will add a new Saudi Arabia of output within a decade. … It is indeed time to start noodling over what it means…

I used to read this newsletter during my lunch break in my previous job. While I enjoyed and looked forward to reading it each day, I often wished that it would focus a little more on conflict, and not just…

I’ve something special for you today. While in normally in Capital & Conflict we peer at the financial markets and try to learn their secrets, today I’d like to try and answer a more existential question: why does this business…

I received a terrific email from a reader yesterday morning, which I’d like to share with you today. Please tell me I’m wrong… So when the next European banking crisis hits, let’s say in Italy, and it’s due… Everyone will…

The most profitable company in the world has drunk from the debt pool for the first time… and to great applause. Saudi Aramco, titan of the oil market, finally gave into temptation and borrowed over £9 billion earlier this week….

Boaz Shoshan here, I’m back again. I took a brief holiday home to Aberdeen for the BrewDog AGM, but have now returned to the southern English sunshine. I was hoping to “decompress” and keep my mind off work while I…

Yesterday, my colleague Connor Whitlock introduced you to the War on Cash. He showed you how the International Monetary Fund and HMRC are already getting their claws on your money. The money you thought safest of all. The money in…

There are many risks associated with investing. I didn’t think worrying about the cash in my current account would be one of them. Since starting at Southbank Investment Research, I have had my eyes opened to the War on Cash….

Friday at last. What a busy week it has been here at the office. We’ve plenty in the works at the moment that you’ll be hearing more about in the coming weeks. I’m only now getting caught up on the…

Boaz here again. I’ve just finished working on a brand new project with Nick Hubble in our studio, which you’ll hear more about next week. I hope you enjoyed Nick O’Connor’s thoughts on gold while I was away but today…

In today’s letter: why gold is still the ultimate crisis insurance, for private investors, savers and powerful Russian autocrats alike. Let’s dive straight in! By the way, it’s publisher Nick O’Connor here. I’ve locked Boaz in the studio here at…

Gold. Some love it, some hate it. We’re in the former camp, but whether you like it or not there are forces at work we believe will push its price higher. I’m currently writing a report on what those forces…

So ends an eventful quarter here at Southbank Investment Research. It’s been a hyperactive beginning to the year, with plenty going on at the office. But now it’s time to move into the next quarter, and just next week our…

Our publisher Nick O’Connor gave a presentation to everyone in the office not long ago. I was away on holiday at the time so I didn’t get to see it, but thankfully it was captured on video. I watched it…

I’m just off to begin the first quarterly conference call of the year for readers of The Price Report. Tim and I were going to call it a “Brexit Special”, but that was before talk of a delay came to…

It’s not often our head quant heads over from Texas, but when he does, I have a simple request: please bring a six-pack of Lone Star beer. Lone Star, the “National Beer of Texas”, is brewed out in Fort Worth….

There won’t be receiving your daily dose of Capital & Conflict editorial this week. Have no fear – we’re not closing our doors for good. But right now it’s all hands on deck as we launch The Southbank Investors’ Exhibition….

One morning in Mauritius last week, a message arrived from work that yanked me firmly out of my jovial holiday mood. “Your Kalashnikov arrived in the mail” read the WhatsApp message. It was from my good friend and colleague Nick…

Back in the late 80s and 90s there was a saying that rose to popularity among traders on Wall Street: “buy bonds, wear diamonds.” The meaning behind it was simple. If you filled your portfolio with bonds, you’d make so…

One of the questions I get asked the most is this: “Your research looks great – but I don’t know how to get started investing.” Or: “I don’t have a broker, have never bought a share and don’t know what…

Boaz Shoshan here, back at the helm of Capital & Conflict. I’m just returned from holiday, complete with sunburn and an ignorance of the latest Brexit drama. I hope you’ve enjoyed the sterling work of Kit Winder and Nickolai Hubble…

Boaz is back tomorrow. Until then, it falls to me, Nick Hubble, to fill your inbox one last time… Your parents shouldn’t be proud of what you do. That’s what our business’ founder told writers like me when I first…

It’s Kit again. This week I’ve written to you a lot about volatility. There is one thing from Tuesday’s article that I want to tease out a bit further. Corporate share buybacks, and debt. Last year, corporate share buybacks rose…

When the mob turns against the rich, some of the rich put on rags and join them. CNBC: The granddaughter of Roy Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Co. with brother Walt Disney, said [last] Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box…

I am writing this just a few hours after the US launched a nuke. Fear not – we aren’t all seconds from being evaporated. It was the US testing its nuclear deterrent, or more specifically, the delivery vehicle. The unarmed…

If you’ve been trading sterling over the last few days, I tip my hat to you. If you’ve turned a profit, I tip it again. With another vote of no confidence on the table, the distinct lack of a dull…

I bought my father a splitting maul for his birthday a few years ago. Turned out to be the best present I’ve ever given him. By the time I got to have a go with it in December, it was…

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – The stock market may have resumed its selloff sooner than we expected. The Dow fell 660 points on Thursday after Apple announced weak sales – mostly in China. Here’s Bloomberg: The S&P 500 Index tumbled 2.5 percent…

By Christmas, my iPhone SE had less battery life than a Mayfly and needed a replacement. I headed to the Apple store to take a look at the latest iPhone X. I was wholly uninspired by the design, and wondered…

It’s the last day of 2018. I hope it’s been a great year for you personally. Because it wasn’t for financial markets. But there’s no point reliving what made markets tank in 2018. It’s probably still fresh in your mind….

A short note from me today. I’d just like to wish you a very Merry Christmas on behalf of myself and everyone else at Southbank Investment Research. We write to you often about markets and money, risk and opportunity, but…

I’ve not got something for you to read today, but something to listen to. It’s the Southbank Annual Roundtable event that we’ve just recorded. Nick Hubble, chief strategist of Zero Hour Alert, Harry Hamburg, editor of Exponential Investor, Nick O’Connor,…

If the US stock and bond markets were to close for the year today, it would be the first time in over 40 years that both assets ended the year in the red. There’s a few weeks in December yet,…

It’s time to appreciate the sunset as this year draws to a close, and reflect on what 2018 really meant for financial markets. What’s past is prologue; let’s see what we can arm ourselves with from the last 12 months…

Today is my last day as your editor of Capital & Conflict. I’ve been here since February 2017. Let me know what you think of my scribbles by emailing [email protected]. But don’t worry, I’m not leaving you completely. Just moving…

Bloomberg pulled no punches this morning: “One of the toughest years for financial markets in half a century got appreciably worse Tuesday, with simmering weakness across assets boiling over to leave investors with virtually nowhere to hide.” The strange thing…

I had a phone call yesterday evening with a man who caused the financial crisis. He had been in the hedge fund business at the time. Bear Stearns was their prime broker. Lehman Brothers was their counterparty. And Fortis –…

The world’s stockmarkets lost eight trillion US dollars in value in October according to Bloomberg. By that measure, it’s the worst month since 2008. Change in value of global stocks by month Source: Bloomberg October wiped out almost all of…

On the very same day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the art market was booming in ways nobody had seen before. Damien Hirst had bypassed his art dealer and his gallery, and listed a large collection of his work directly…

We’re edging ever closer to the financial crisis I’ve been investigating since 2012. I moved to four different cities in Australia to conduct my research, interviewing mortgage brokers and former bankers over four years. Over the last few months, a…

The American stockmarket chalked up the longest rally in history yesterday. The former record bull market, from 1990 to 2000, delivered 417% in returns compared to today’s 323%. But we’re not finished yet. Market peaks tend to feature blow-off tops….

Do you remember Domino Day? That painfully iconic European event where students from across Europe tried to set records for how many dominos they could set up and knock over? Well, it’s back. Only this time, it’s emerging markets that…

Turkey’s crisis is nothing to worry about. Because if it wasn’t Turkey, it’d be someone else. What should worry you is the timing of the Turkish crisis. The world has barely embarked on quantitative tightening or interest rate increases. And…

POITOU, FRANCE – Here at the Diary, we walk on the sunny side of the street, even at night. So today, we look at the bright side of bad news.

It was nice and cold in Edinburgh this weekend. It seems strange saying that, but this heatwave has turned our London office into a furnace. When I saw the sky go overcast through the train window shortly after crossing the…

The political world is delivering a steady stream of chaos this week. And it’s only Tuesday. Keep in mind, financial markets obsess over politics. And for good reason of late. With central banks poised to prevent any sort of rout,…

Why do we invest our retirement savings in financial markets? The answer better be damned good given it’s practically government policy. Ironically enough, the government policy of auto-enrolment tells you plenty about the nature of the system. It relies on…

The surprising thing about financial crises is that they come as a surprise. The stockmarket and the bond market are supposed to be forecasting mechanisms. They “discount” the future, meaning they figure out how much something is worth by estimating…

POITOU, FRANCE – President Trump escalated the trade war on Wednesday, making a kamikaze attack on a vast armada of Chinese imports – $200 billion in total – headed for California. The Chinese say they will retaliate.

POITOU, FRANCE – Investors chose to look at the half-full part of the glass on Monday. Our suggestion: They should look more closely.

NORMANDY, FRANCE – “I’d much rather do a funeral than a marriage,” says a brother-in-law, a Baptist minister. “I’ve never seen a funeral fail.”

My research into Britain’s future continues here in Japan. And I’ve reached a very simple conclusion to guide your financial decision-making going forward: don’t give money to moochers. That’s the consensus view from those who know what it’s like to…

POITOU, FRANCE – Last week was a slow week, interrupted by the Fourth of July holiday. Stocks bounced around a bit, going nowhere special. Even the Trump Show had been relatively calm, with no new ratings boosts. Rumors of a…

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron are in trouble. The politics of tolerance and charisma are not working. What if Europe’s leaders fall? One after the other? Could financial markets stomach political uncertainty now? I’m not just talking about political storms…

POITOU, FRANCE – Arnold at West Point… Sherman at Atlanta… Powell at the UN… We Americans remembered our heroes on Wednesday. And here at the Diary’s headquarters in rural France, we recalled one of the greatest of them all…

Tomorrow, it begins for real. The trade war gets hot. Donald Trump’s tariffs come into effect. $34 billion in Chinese goods will be subject to 25% tariffs. But if you ask the man himself, the trade war began many years…

It doesn’t matter who you are, debt will solve your problem. If you’re a company CEO whose job and pay packet are all about raising the share price, the answer to your challenge is simple – debt. You just need…

PARIS – We spend a lot of time overseas – mostly in Europe and South America. This is both good and bad. On the good side, the distance helps give us more – or fresh – perspective. We see how…

PARIS – We came up to Paris on Sunday night for a meeting… and to celebrate a wedding anniversary. “Doesn’t Paris make you feel young again?” asked the person with whom we were recalling 34 years of married life, much…

You might think the US trade war is about the US. But it isn’t. It’s about the US’ ability to affect other nations. The real question is how much clout the global superpower has. Is it enough to get its…

POITOU, FRANCE – The corks popped Wednesday night all over the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Architects anticipated grander and gaudier new assignments. Lawyers eyed their new vacation homes on the Delaware coast. The movers and shakers celebrated another victory… …and…

Trade wars are good, and easy to win. – Donald J. Trump POITOU, FRANCE – “War is the health of the [Deep] state,” said 19th century writer Randolph Bourne. Of course, war is also very costly and harmful to individuals….

The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own conceit. – Proverbs 18:11 POITOU, FRANCE – We are following up on yesterday’s discussion by connecting a few final dots. Then, we promise we…

If you’re utterly mystified by the last few years of economic and political events, we’ve devised a narrative for you. Central banks have crushed volatility. Financial markets are now stable. The problem is, financial markets are just a reflection of…

Thursday, June 21, 2018: The longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. POITOU, FRANCE – “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” is a line from Jesus of Nazareth. Typically clever, and almost evasive, it left open the…

In today’s Capital & Conflict… an extraordinary situation in the oil market… how to use the surplus to predict future prices… why so many people are shorting oil… moving to a multipolar energy system… and more… In the sound and…

Platinum prices have been hit hard in recent months, but now looks like it could be a great buying opportunity. Dominic Frisby explains.

From Deutsche Bank shares to overpriced London property, Dominic Frisby picks what he thinks are the five worst investments you can make right now.

A threat that interest rates may one day rise sparked a selloff in America’s stockmarkets. The US bull market could be nearing the end of its run, says Dominic Frisby.

If you followed the investment maxim and sold your stocks in May, now’s the time to buy back in again. Dominic Frisby picks the best stockmarket to buy now.

Investors have been favouring high dividend-paying stocks for some time. But they’re getting exceedingly expensive, says Tim Price.

You may not think there is much to laugh about when it comes to taxation, says Dominic Frisby. But there’s certainly lots to talk about.

This just in: UK consumer price inflation in July was 0.6% according to figures out this morning from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Expectations were for 0.5%, according to Bloomberg. That prompted some breathless commentary on Twitter that a…

We live in a new world order; a time when the game has utterly changed. Tim Price looks at the new rules we’re going to have to play by.

Governments want to pin the blame for the world’s economic mess on speculators and hedge funds. And their attempts to regulate them are destroying free markets, says Tim Price.

“Financial martial law” is a more powerful and destructive version of financial repression. It’s coming to Britain, says Tim Price. And it’s a direct threat to your freedom.

Good news on the Brexit front. Britain’s economy hasn’t imploded. UK unemployment from March to May was actually down 54,000 compared to the previous quarter, according to data released this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). A record…

Let’s leave the decline and fall of Western civilisation to the side for today. It will happen whether I have anything to say about it or not. Instead, I want you to focus on the iron ore price and inflation….

We begin the week with a failed (and perhaps staged) coup attempt in Turkey. A top Air Force general is in jail, 6,000 other judges and military personnel have been arrested and over 300 people are dead after the events…

I’ll deal with markets first, before getting into history and politics. I want to take you back to the point Jim Rickards made yesterday about the European Union being stronger without the UK. But I want to look at it in…

In the wake of the EU referendum result, the pound fell sharply. But now, says Dominic Frisby, conditions are perfect for a rebound. Here’s why.

The S&P 500 made a new high in New York. It’s been 13 long months since the index made a new high. But it did so yesterday at 2,137. This seven year bull market may not be in rip-roaring health. But it’s…

As if the EU didn’t have enough to worry about with Brexit, the European Central Bank (ECB) finds itself in a political dogfight with the Italian government. At issue is whether Italy can skirt ECB rules on bail-ins in order…

How much are you prepared to pay for safety? And is what you’re buying really safe? We’re about to find out the answer to both questions. A total of three British property funds have frozen redemptions. Interest rates on government…

History shows that the issuers of legal tender and banknotes have only one real play left when the public loses confidence in money. Once the public reckons that purchasing power is in rapid decline, they can’t get rid of paper…

What are the odds now that the Fed’s next move is a rate cut or negative rates? Think about it. The people who are least happy about the Fed’s decision right now are in Japan. The Japanese yen is up…

Calm down. Deep breaths. Let’s not get sucked into jawboning about politics. Remember, prices are signals. Markets are mechanisms for communicating prices. What do prices tell us about the odds of a Brexit this time next week? I’ll come back…

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming That is the sound of alarm bells ringing inside my face. The warning signs come from the bond…

Britain’s membership of the EU has been a mixed bag. But there are a few areas where it’s clear we’ve done badly out of it, says Dominic Frisby.

It’s been a week for feeding the brain here at Friars Bridge Court. Most of the editors have interest rates on the mind. Charlie Morris, Fleet Street Letter’s Investment Director, reckons US rates are headed up on labour market strength…

A reader asked an important question this week about the long-term “death cross” formation on the S&P 500. So what? The death cross is on the S&P 500. That’s America. This is Britain. What about the FTSE 100? Fair point….

What happens when trade barriers and walls go up? What happens when people decide that the free movement of capital, labour, goods and services is no longer improving the world? The social mood changes. And when the social mood changes,…

Now it’s getting interesting. And no, I’m not talking about the Brexit debate. I’ll get to that in a second. I’m talking about what gold is whispering in your ear. Gold ETF holdings rose by 63.2 tonnes in the last…

There are $9 trillion worth of government bonds with negative yields on this planet of ours. In Japan, all debt with a maturity of 15 years or less currently has a negative yield. Investors chasing a measly yield of 0.39%…

Back in February, Dominic Frisby tipped oil as a five-year “buy”. Since then, it’s up by 40%. Is it time to sell, or should you hang on for bigger gains?

I come to praise Warren Buffett, not to bury him. But keep a shovel handy just in case. The iconic value investor presided over his annual “Woodstock for geeks”, otherwise known as Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. What did we learn?…

Well well well! What is happening in the gold market? $1,260/ounce was a big price level for gold, according to The Fleet Street Letter Investment Director Charlie Morris. Why? He explained in the interview I did with him last week….

Is the oil business in terminal decline? Definitely not. The modern world would grind to a halt and we would all starve without crude oil and refined fuels. Our transportation system (upon which our food and our just-in-time system of…

Nothing quashes a good oil price rally like the chance of “black swan” in China. FTSE 100 stocks copped a belting in early trading after RBS said China’s recent surge of lending to non-financial firms could end with an “abrupt…

“Sell in May and go away, come back on St Leger’s Day”, runs the investor’s maxim. But is there any truth in it? Dominic Frisby investigates.

Well that escalated quickly! Nothing in the news indicated that the world’s major oil producers would fail to make a deal over the weekend. But the talks in Doha failed to produce the promised production cuts. The world remains awash…

The gold/silver ratio is back above 80. I mentioned this on the Facebook video this morning. You can see it below. Randy Smallwood, the CEO of Silver Wheaton Corp., says that the last three times the ratio went above 80…

Is there a ceasefire in the currency wars? The answer to that question matters for a simple reason: a strong US dollar tends to suck money away from emerging markets and “risk” assets. It also tends to benefit tech stocks…

The markets are eerily quiet. With so many trends and facts to titillate us all, you’d expect a little more excitement, says Bill Bonner.

Two investment issues have come up this week that could benefit from the wisdom and experience of the inimitable Charles Morris. Charlie also responded to my query about an 18% one-day rise in ore prices alongside a 25% year-over-year decline…

“The five year bear market for gold is over and we are at the beginning of a new bull market.” So says Pierre Lassonde, gold insider and CEO of Franco-Nevada. Speaking to BNN, Lassonde made the case for gold relative…

Something doesn’t add up. Certain commodity prices—gold, copper, and oil—are up strongly this year. Yet China’s exports fells 25% year-over-year in February. It was the largest year-over-year decline since May 2009. And that’s when everything nearly fell apart. Meanwhile, long-term…

If you swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, were you a buyer of commodity stocks on January 21st of this year? Objection! Over ruled. Kindly answer the question. Or don’t. But the facts…

In a credit bubble, mistakes are inevitably made. Credit gets mis-allocated. Bad investment decisions are made. Risks are misread. You never get a new cycle of genuine growth until the losses are realised and the bad loans are liquidated. You…

At least one economist has things pretty much figured out. Vikram Mansharamani from Yale University explained to CNBC what Charlie Morris explained to Fleet Street Letter readers earlier this month: China’s exporting deflation to the world. Here’s what Mansharamani said:…

Gold exchange traded funds are partying like its 2009 again. Inflows into the two big gold ETFs hit $5 billion in February. He wasn’t in yesterday. But I can imagine if he was, Charlie Morris from the Fleet Street Letter…

Oil is looking incredibly cheap. Over three to five years, it’s an investment that’s sure to make handsome returns. Dominic Frisby picks the best ways to play it.

Are we back in the Twilight Zone? No, that headline isn’t a reference to Donald Trump’s impressive victory in South Carolina. He won the primary with a double digit margin over other Republican candidates. And in the odd world of…

Well now it’s getting interesting. The Iranian oil minister has said Iran now, “backs any measures which help stabilise the market.” He was talking about the Saudi-Russian brokered deal to freeze global oil production at current levels. Doha now less…

It’s worth it to also look at gold in terms of oil. That is, how many barrels of oil will an ounce of gold buy you? Take a look at the chart below. And think of it as a ratio…

Boing. That’s the sound of the stocks bouncing. Enjoy it while it lasts. It was a brutal week. Today is a bit of a relief rally. Let’s use that pause to point out the two most important things that happened…

Sending interest rates negative will pile on the pain for savers, says Tim Price. And it could get a lot worse before it gets better.

The crash in momentum has not yet begun in earnest.

What on earth is going on in European bank stocks?

What if blue chip stocks in developed markets turn out to be your best defence against a deflationary depression?

If oil is so bad, why is the S&P 500 oil sector fund not making new lows too?

Bad news for big miners as the price of insuring BHP Billiton’s bonds against default spikes.

Stocks may get a further boost from the GDP figures released by the Office for National Statistics.

Sterling is going to the dogs. There’s even a chance it could reach parity with the dollar. Dominic Frisby looks at what might be next for the pound.

If you’re a reader of the former version of the Fleet Street Letter, you may be wondering how the new one is different.

The five-hour time difference between New York and London allows you to chase a Wall Street crash with a nice whisky

If resource companies had better lobbyists, they could probably get some help from the government.

Last week, there wasn’t a single stockmarket in the world that showed positive breadth.

Tim Price look back at how the British media’s financial pundits fared with their tips in 2015, and casts an eye over what they’re tipping for the year ahead.

If there’s a silver lining to this week’s pasting in the markets, it’s that we’re one day closer to the bottom.

Here’s a question no one really knows the answer to: how rigged are global stockmarkets?

Stockmarkets have begun 2016 like a bunch of surly and hungover teenagers on New Year’s Day.

A proprietary method for valuing gold, how to understand when the next big bull market is here, and the one signal to look out for before it arrives.

Dominic Frisby goes back over the 12 predictions he made at the start of the year, and looks at what he got right, and what he got wrong.

A lot of people have a lot of bad things to say about Brazil. But it’s in a much better state than most economies.

The high-yield and junk bond markets are acting as if the Fed has already raised US interest rates.

The financial effects on BHP Billiton from the Brazil dam burst could be severe. Dominic Frisby looks at just how bad things could get for the mining giant.

Talks on a new deal for Britain have reached an impasse. Paris and Berlin are not amused.

Tim Price looks at what the government and central banks could have done differently in the financial crisis of 2008, and how the next collapse might unfold.

When the market finally unravels, says City insider Tim Price, we’ll find out whether bankers are working for the bank, themselves, or their clients.

The pound is struggling against the dollar, but is at its highest against the euro since the financial crisis. So what does the future hold for sterling? Dominic Frisby investigates.

A financial crisis always begins in some peripheral market, says Dan Denning. The next one could come from emerging-market bonds.

A financial crisis always begins in some peripheral market. The next one could come from emerging-market bonds.

The price war in the oil market is going to claim some victims soon enough. But it might not be the obvious candidates, says Dan Denning.

Nick Hubble recounts a cautionary tale of how bungling bankers denied him access to his cash for days. Don’t let it happen to you.

Let’s start with an outrageously personal question. Ask yourself – how much have you changed in the past ten years? I’m talking about your personal traits and general personality. Are you the same person you were a decade ago?

let’s get straight down to it and talk about gold. I was recently invited to talk at the LBMA annual conference in Vienna.

London property has won the dubious distinction of topping an index of asset bubbles, says Dominic Frisby. Bubbles have a habit of popping. Is that what’s lined up for London?

Dominic Frisby’s call that the share price of Skechers shoes would fall was right on the money. Here, he reviews the trade and lines up two other short-selling opportunities.

Palladium is both rare and expensive, and it’s had quite a run. But that looks to be over now. Dominic Frisby explains why he’s selling the metal.

Short selling is a risky and often unpopular strategy. But it can be a good way of profiting from an overpriced stock. Here, Dominic Frisby explains the ins and outs of selling short.

Everyone is betting on a stronger US dollar, says Dominic Frisby. But that trend may have run out of steam. Here’s how to profit from it.

According to one uncannily accurate financial forecaster, today marks “peak government” and the bursting of the sovereign debt bubble. Dominic Frisby looks at what it means for your money.

The stockmarket slide has been sudden and violent. But is this a true bear market, or just a blip as stocks head ever higher? Dominic Frisby looks at the evidence.

Is pessimism in the commodities sector reaching a peak? Dan Denning looks at the evidence.

The future is coming whether you like it or not, says Dan Denning. So, either do nothing, and hope for the best – or take control of your finances.

As Greece’s latest election result shows, pretending things are OK is the new normal, says Dan Denning.

If there is going to be a house-price crash, the ‘artificial’ market of London new-build property is where it will start. Dominic Frisby explains why.

That great economic indicator, copper, is ticking up. But can it be trusted? Dan Denning doesn’t think so, and warns of worse to come.

You may think that even considering investing in a mining company is a stupid idea. But the case for buying this one is compelling, says Dominic Frisby.

An obscure stockmarket rule could mean the removal of a stock’s price altogether. It’s just one more example of how the authorities can crack down on your financial freedom.

Is this a bear market or a bull market? You can make the case either way, says Dominic Frisby. But all his instincts say it’s a bear. Here’s why.

China reportedly sold off a chunk of US debt recently. Dan Denning looks at what that says about the latest salvo in the currency wars, and the dollar.

Investors got a peek of what to expect again and again in a drone-driven stockmarket, says Dan Denning.

Is it time to get out of stocks? Dan Denning examines the evidence from the US stockmarket.

Stockmarkets can be dangerous places, says Dan Denning. Investors need to make sure they don’t get eaten.

Cash isn’t wealth. It only serves as a store of value, says Dan Denning. But it beats bartering.

The currency wars are raging once again. Dominic Frisby looks at where the dollar will be heading next, and what that means for the pound.

China’s yuan devaluation shows why we need money that is free from state interference. Dominic Frisby looks at what might replace our present currency regime.

Dominic Frisby made a dozen predictions for 2015 – from where the gold price would go to who would win the Premier League. Here, he looks at how they’re doing.

Changes announced in the Summer Budget could be brewing up a storm in the buy-to-let market. Dominic Frisby explains what that means for house prices.

The commodity bear market is in its fifth year. And industrial metal prices are nearer the bottom than the top, says Dominic Frisby. But how much lower can they go?

With mortgage lending much tighter than it used to be, you might think house prices would have fallen. But they haven’t. They’re still unaffordable to most. Dominic Frisby explains why.

The pound has hit five-year highs against many currencies, and it’s even taking on the mighty dollar. Dominic Frisby takes a look at what’s behind the pound’s impressive rise.

Former maths teachers Fergus and Judith Wilson became the ‘pin-up couple’ of buy-to-let property. Now, they’re starting to sell up. Dominic Frisby asks if you should do the same.

Tim Price explains why a company’s opulent headquarters can be a worrying sign of its attitude to money, and to you as a shareholder.

The history of financial markets is a history of convincing stories that ended up in disappointment, says Tim Price.

Franklin D Roosevelt was a political giant who achieved re-election three times. His economic achievements are questionable, but his bravery is not, says Tim Price.

Cheap money, artificial credit, and zero interest policies have created all sorts of bubbles since the financial crisis of 2008. Dominic Frisby looks at three that are ready to pop.

The pound has been surprisingly stable compared to the lead-up to the 2010 election. But that could all change after tomorrow. Dominic Frisby explains why – and gives his election predictions.

Tim Price explains what you should watch our for when choosing a fund manager to look after your money.

A two-decade bear market has left many high-quality Japanese companies trading at attractive prices, says Tim Price.

The financial markets may penalise ignorance, but false knowledge can be a whole lot more deadly. Tim Price outlines half a dozen investment truisms that simply aren’t true.

Interest rates have been a rock bottom for years. Dominic Frisby looks at when they might rise, and how you can profit in a zero-rate world.

When the next financial giant comes cap-in-hand for taxpayers’ cash, let it fail, says Tim Price.

The financial world has been turned on its head and investors have lost touch with reality, says Tim Price.

Traders are ten-a-penny. Becoming an owner is the surest path to riches, says Tim Price. And it’s more owners we so desperately need.

There are plenty of reasons to be bearish on silver. But despite everything, Dominic Frisby is buying. Here, he explains why.

A fractured society of ultra-affluent ‘haves’ and a growing underclass of ‘have-nots’ sounds like fiction, says Tim Price. But it isn’t.

The world’s stockmarkets have seen some big falls in the last couple of days. Dominic Frisby looks at what’s happening, and which markets in particular to avoid.

US stocks and the US dollar both have massively outperformed the rest of the world since 2011. But that could soon change, says Dominic Frisby.

Oil explorers and junior miners were once the must-have play on the great commodities boom. Now the party is well and truly over. Dominic Frisby asks how long before the bear market ends.

There’s been no shortage of things to worry about this year, says Tim Price. Investors should take action to protect their wealth.

Tech stocks are one of the biggest growth stories of our age, says Dominic Frisby. Here he explains why they’re about to take off, and picks the best way to cash in.

The price of oil is on the way back up. Dominic Frisby looks at how far the rally might go, and how to play it.

Thousands of new £1m-plus flats are being built in London. Locals don’t want them – so who’s going to buy? They’ve got bubble written all over them, says Dominic Frisby.

Fleet Street’s finest share tipsters didn’t fare too well in a tricky 2014. Tim Price looks at how they performe, and what they’re tipping for the year ahead.

Dominic Frisby dusts off his crystal ball and picks his top 12 investment predictions for 2015.

With 2014 drawing to a close, Dominic Frisby looks back over the last 12 months to see how the predictions he made at the start of the year panned out.

Oil’s once-in-a-decade plunge is likely to be followed by one heck of a rally. Dominic Frisby looks at when that might come, and how you could profit.

The price of oil has been stuck in a narrow range for some time. So are we due a breakout? Dominic Frisby looks at where oil might go next.

Dominic Frisby asks if Britain’s summer house-price slowdown is just a pause before the next leg higher, or if it’s the start of something more ominous.

As the ‘Yes’ campaign builds up steam in Scotland, the pound has fallen heavily against the dollar. Dominic Frisby explains why, and asks: what’s next?

No metal is quite as erratic as silver – but its potential to make its buyers rich is huge. Dominic Frisby examines the charts.

Food supplies will start to disappear without this vital resource. Dominic Frisby explains why supply is coming under pressure, and tips the best stocks to profit.

Airlines have been fantastic investments over the past few years. But now the bull market is reversing, says Dominic Frisby. It’s time to sell.

The price of platinum and palladium is set to rise as supply problems continue and demand increases. Dominic Frisby picks the best ways for you to invest.

Foxtons, the famously bullish London estate agent, has seen its share price fall to a 52-week low. That doesn’t bode well for the capital’s house prices, says Dominic Frisby.

Mining companies have had a bad few years. But things are starting to look up now, says Dominic Frisby. It’s time to buy again.

High house prices are destroying the prospects of a generation. But there is a simple way to make property affordable again. Dominic Frisby explains how.

Housebuilders are very good indicators of the state of the property market. And right now, they’re in a bear market. Dominic Frisby explains what this means for Britain’s house prices.

The next great bull market will be in a technology that could change the world, says Dominic Frisby – but you’ve probably never heard of it.

As an investment, silver promises much but rarely delivers. The long-term outlook may be good, but there could be trouble round the corner for the silver price, says Dominic Frisby.