Pro Race Baiter Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu hits new low as she compares ISIS and the IDF: Tom Winnifrith

Don't follow the Bank of England too closely as an investor

The Governor of the Bank of England and I must be related somehow, albeit his direct ancestors over the last century or so had much more access to any of the money than my direct ancestors did. Interestingly, there was only one of us who studied undergraduate Economics but, then again, only the now Bank of England supremo started his career at the London School of Economics and then the Bank of England itself whilst the closest I have been with the latter is visiting its rather good museum (worth a trip in my opinion). Anyhow, the reason I am rambling on about Mr Bailey is that today's Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers are rather good news for him. Interest rate cuts set fair for 2024 then?

A mid-December big week...

Are you looking forward to Christmas? There will be no turkey at our household, but the premium salmon offering coming from our local supermarket looks rather attractive (online). As for the world of investments, there is really only one week of note left in the year. I know you will be able to continue to buy or sell shares at various parts of the last couple of weeks of the year (especially if you are trading in various developing economies), but the only outstanding matters to focus on are either macro or predictive centred in the larger cap world (ex a dodgy pre-Christmas profit warning). What is happening during the mid-December big week for the global investment markets? There are two matters of particular note in my opinion.

Busy, busy, busy Thursday – but some thoughts on today’s numbers from BT Group, Sainsbury & Trainline

It is a busy day in the markets. The Bank of England should follow yesterday’s decision by the Federal Reserve and hold interest rates, whilst global investors should be focused on updates from Europe’s largest company Novo Nordisk, some small company called Apple in the United States and (in my opinion) the world’s best gold company Barrick (which is actually presenting in London today). In the UK market, I will leave Shell (SHEL) to those obsessed with it and focus on three I personally find interesting.

Monday’s analytical calm before the earnings season storm

This week, Monday is the analytical calm before the global corporate earnings storm. Irrespective of whether you are a UK-focused or a global multi-asset investor, it is going to get busy over the next couple of weeks even before we talk about geopolitical and central bank decision matters.

Busy Thursday – I still love Mondi, Deliveroo is such a (personal) avoid, and is Rentokil finally getting interesting?

There is lots happening in the global markets. As an investor you just have to get used to it and, despite all the geopolitical, macro, earnings season and more insights, what matters more is always how you react rather than how many new headlines you can look at or listen to. I am a fan of the packing and paper FTSE 100 company Mondi (MNDI).

Wages are beating prices. Great…but it is still a mixed world out there

I see that some new UK data this morning observed that wages rose at an annual rate of 7.8% between June and August, and unsurprisingly is now higher than the latest CPI increase. An average data point indication is always a complete mess as personal price or wage (or personal investment portfolio) performance is always materially diversified. However, I think it is fair to say that the average UK consumer is not feeling very, very excited about general or personal economic opportunities over the next year or two. I am a glass half full sort of person and - at some level - you always make your own luck. And, whilst the fourth quarter of the year is (historically) statistically strong, a far more useful insight is observing that it is smart to be an active investor, trying to carefully choose equities with good pricing power, attractive free cash flow generation capabilities and a strong balance sheet. You can already see the importance of such criteria in the early days of the global corporate earnings season.

Good news (GSK), expected news (PageGroup), less good news (bricks and related)…and Sir Keir Starmer

Over the last thirty years or so I have looked at plenty of reports from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Most of them have…struggled to correctly estimate future economic changes, but we all know what really matters is not what you predict but instead what you do. On that basis, maybe UK government bond yields might be lowish over the next few years and Sir Keir Starmer might blast through a million new homes if he is elected in a year or so. And we might have better growth and lower taxes and effortless better times. As if!, though broader markets remain pretty workable in my opinion.

Ex-dividends and potential FTSE 100 changes

Many, many years ago, I panicked when a significant investment of the hedge fund I was working for at the time started one Thursday morning significantly down…until I realised it had just gone ex-dividend. So, if you own shares in Aviva (AV.), Mondi (MNDI), Diageo (DGE), Haleon (HLN), Ibstock (IBST), Auto Trader (AUTO), Land Securities (LAND), Legal & General (LGEN) and a bunch of other stocks do not panic. I could also flip it around the other way, and observe that you should not get overly excited about yesterday evening’s results from the Silicon Valley favourite, Nvidia.

UPDATED: Footnotes: Big Sofa and Skinbiotherapeutics

A busy day dropping off Olaf’s godmother at Crewe Station and on other matters looms so, pro tem, just a couple of footnotes on things I might have overlooked yesterday.