Friday, May 28, 2021
Investment Bank Outlook: 28-05-2021
from Tickmill Expert Blog - Forex Traders Blog https://www.tickmill.com/blog/investment-bank-outlook-28-05-2021"
via IFTTT
Wine of the week: a Marlborough sauv with a haunting appeal
2020 Bob Short for Kate, Sauvignon Blanc, Glover Family Vineyards, Marlborough, New Zealand
£16.99, bancroftwines.com
Winemaker Ben Glover’s sister Kate passed away, after a long battle with cancer, in 2018, and this wine is a wonderful homage to her. The “Bob Short for Kate” label is a reference to a TV show she loved, Blackadder, and it is fitting that this is an energetic, organic, expressive, uniquely fascinating and memorable wine. Ben has been making stunning wines since 1998 and is responsible for hundreds and hundreds of labels, but this is, not surprisingly, his most sincere and considered wine.
On the surface, it might look to the casual observer like just another New Zealand sauvignon blanc, but no. Made from 88% sauvignon blanc and 12% semillon, and sourced from three of the oldest and most famous organic vineyards in the region, these two grapes are co-fermented to combine their aromas and flavours from the very first moment possible. The depth of flavour of the semillon brings gravitas to the sauvignon’s levity and the result gives us a Marlborough “sauvignon” with remarkable textural appeal under its haunting citrus and fresh herb perfume.
Fabulous value for money and utterly delicious to boot, I would urge you to taste this wine because it is a pioneering style that, with a handful of other creations, is charting a new course for this region.
Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com).
from Moneyweek RSS Feed https://moneyweek.com/spending-it/wine/603297/wine-of-the-week-a-marlborough-sauv-with-a-haunting-appeal
via IFTTT
Ferrari Roma: taking us back to the Sixties
The “newest stallion in Maranello’s stables” is “the most beautiful Ferrari built in decades”, says Jared Zaugg on Maxim. The Roma represents “a return to the elegance of the 1960s grand tourers”, whose original purpose was to “embody elegance, luxury, power and performance in the most balanced way possible”. There is nothing “brutal” about the Roma’s design: it’s smooth, but evocative, indicating “reserved aggression ready to be unleashed if necessary” while remaining “incredibly harmonious to the overall sophistication”.
On the road, the Roma’s 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 delivers 611 bhp and jolts you from rest to 62mph in just 3.4 seconds. But unlike with previous Ferraris, “you only get 560 torques. That’s still a lot, but it’s not so much that you immediately hit a tree,” says Jeremy Clarkson in The Sunday Times. When you put your foot down “there’s a combination of sound and torque-driven fury, it’s like you’ve dived head first into a vat of dopamine after drinking three pints of serotonin”. For years Ferrari has made cars that have been “way too big, way too powerful and really only suitable for the rich and famous in Saudi Arabia”. Driving one in Britain “is like trying to ride a cow through your local antiques shop”. Not the Roma. “It’s elegant and subtle and pretty and fast and surprisingly practical.”
The seats are “all-day comfortable” and the interior is “an easy and pleasant place in which to while away the miles”, says Ben Miller in Car. The ride is “surprisingly sweet for such a poised, responsive car” too. It’s easy to push the car to its limits, “safe in the knowledge” that the it “won’t be skittled off-line or caught out by mid-corner bumps”. And in race mode, “the Roma covers ground at a breathtaking rate… Gearshifts are complete before you know you’ve asked for them”.
The Roma is not as fast or ferocious “as a “proper supercar”, says Sam Sheehan on Piston Heads. But it still delivers “many of the same sensations… it remains a mesmeric super-GT”.
from Moneyweek RSS Feed https://moneyweek.com/spending-it/cars/603296/ferrari-roma-back-to-the-sixties
via IFTTT
Properties for sale with good connections to London
Stubwood Granary, Hungerford, Berkshire.
Stubwood Granary, Hungerford, Berkshire. Two converted grain silos with a bespoke curved kitchen, a steel-and-glass winding staircase and a modern-style wood-burning stove. The house is two miles from Hungerford, which has direct trains to London Paddington. 5 beds, 3 baths, 2 receps. £1.95m Knight Frank 01488-688539.
Coggeshall Hall, Kelvedon, Colchester, Essex.
Coggeshall Hall, Kelvedon, Colchester, Essex. A Grade II-listed house in 12 acres of gardens bordered by the River Blackwater and close to Kelvedon station, which has direct services to Liverpool Street in under an hour. It has exposed wall and ceiling timbers and an open fireplace. 7 beds, 3 baths, 4 receps. £2.95m Strutt & Parker 1245-254618.
Great Offley House, Offley, Hitchin, Hertfordshire.
Great Offley House, Offley, Hitchin, Hertfordshire. A Grade II-listed house in Great Offley, just 3.5 miles from Hitchin, which has frequent trains to London St Pancras and Kings Cross that take around 33 minutes. The house has wood floors, elegant fireplaces and a large breakfast kitchen with an Aga. 8 beds, 3 baths, 3 receps, study, conservatory, 2-bed cottage, heated outdoor pool, gardens, 2.73 acres. £2.6m Strutt & Parker 020-7318 5025.
Greenways, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire.
Greenways, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire. Three 16th-century cottages have been combined to form this thatched house, which sits on the edge of the Chiltern Escarpment, with direct rail links to London in around 43 minutes. It has beamed ceilings, an inglenook fireplace, a contemporary orangery and a separate one-bedroom annexe that opens onto a patio. 3 beds, 2 baths, 2 receps, gardens, 0.3 acres. £1.5m Hamptons 01494-355341.
The Pagoda House, Winchester, Hampshire.
The Pagoda House, Winchester, Hampshire. A restored, Grade II-listed house built in 1848 for the mayor of Southampton in the centre of Winchester, which has direct trains to London Waterloo in 60 minutes. It has sash windows, an elegant drawing room with a balcony, period fireplaces, landscaped gardens and a courtyard with a water feature. 6 beds, 3 baths, 3 receps, breakfast kitchen, music room, orangery, study, summerhouse, 0.67 acres. £2.95m Savills 01962-841842.
The Manor House, Thurning, Northamptonshire.
The Manor House, Thurning, Northamptonshire. A 15th-century stone cottage in landscaped gardens with a stone smithy and a heated outdoor pool close to Huntingdon, which has direct rail links to Kings Cross. 4 beds, 2 baths, 3 receps, swimming pool, paddock, 10.7 acres. £1.2m Woodford & Co 01832-274732.
Court Lodge, Church Path, Deal, Kent.
Court Lodge, Church Path, Deal, Kent. A Grade II-listed, 16th-century house with later additions in a private location surrounded by large gardens. It is just a few minutes’ walk from the town centre, beach and train station, which has direct trains to London St Pancras. The house has beamed ceilings, sash windows, open fireplaces and a large kitchen with an Aga. 5 beds, 2 baths, 2 receps, separate studio/home office. £1.395m Bright & Bright 01304-374071.
Wineham Place, Henfield, West Sussex.
Wineham Place, Henfield, West Sussex. A country house with Elizabethan origins and later additions in over 78 acres of grounds close to Hassocks and Haywards Heath, which have regular trains to London in under an hour. It has a galleried reception hall with wood panelling, flagstone floors and a central staircase, an inglenook fireplace and a large kitchen with an Aga. 9 beds, 4 baths, 3 receps, swimming-pool complex, 2-bed flat, 2-bed lodge, pond, tennis court, 78.88 acres. £3.95m H.J. Burt 01903-879488.
from Moneyweek RSS Feed https://moneyweek.com/spending-it/houses-for-sale/603295/properties-for-sale-with-good-connections-to-london
via IFTTT
A cruise to Antarctica, the last pristine wilderness
“Sailing to the pristine White Continent is a privilege,” says Mark Stratton in Wanderlust magazine. But as demand to visit Antarctica grows, the number of cruises visiting this wilderness is only set to increase, perhaps putting a strain on its value as a wilderness in the future. “Attempting to add value to my voyage, I joined an Antarctic Whale Safari… operated by Polar Latitudes, a company committed to supporting scientific research.” Passengers engage in citizen science over the 14 days onboard the small ship Hebridean Sky. Seawater was analysed for temperature and salinity and a seabird survey took place astern. “It wasn’t long before albatrosses were trailing the ship, swaying side to side like kites.”
Passengers are also encouraged to send their photos of whales to marine conservation website happywhale.com, so that the whales can be identified and tracked. But is citizen science really of use to conservation efforts? “For sure,” onboard marine mammal expert Annette Bombosch tells Stratton. “[Scientists] benefit from this data, because they cannot always be in Antarctica due to its remoteness and cost.”
Responsible tourism
And the passengers benefit too. “It’s extremely rare, as a tourist, to gain access to a pristine region that’s been set aside primarily for science and conservation,” says Emma Gregg in National Geographic. “It’s equally rare to experience a place where wild birds and animals, instead of fleeing, surround you – on land, while you’re walking, or at sea, while you’re kayaking or in a Zodiac dinghy.” To minimise the damage to the natural environment, there are strict conservation protocols in place when visiting Antarctica, set by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). “Modest yet comfy” expedition ships, for example, carry no more than 200 passengers. That makes “it easy for green-thinking individuals to make their visit as eco-friendly as possible”. And by and large these vessels are stripped of their luxury amenities, such as “swimming pools [and] glitzy eating”, so as to keep their carbon footprint as low as possible. But it’s the knowledgeable guides that really set them apart.
From the “tourist-friendly” port of Ushuaia, close to “South America’s gracefully pointed toe”, the cruises take in “some of the best coastal sites on the Antarctic peninsula and South Shetlands, before returning via “the teeming penguin and seal colonies of South Georgia”.
A glut of animal life
Despite what some passengers may expect, the return journey via the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia is not an anti-climax after a visit to Antarctica. In some ways, it’s the best bit, says Jamie Lafferty in the Financial Times. The island is, for one, “more diverse”. “From afar, tussock grass gives the South Georgian foothills an alpine appearance, and along with 25 other native plants… this comparative lushness allows for species of birds to thrive here which would perish further south.” The king penguins, which number around half a million, are smaller than their Antarctic emperor cousins. But they are “more colourful, more numerous, and far more accessible… The continual jostling of black and white and gold is occasionally interrupted by the hulking brown mass of adolescent elephant seals”. There are few other places where you could hope to see “such a glut of animal life”.
Antarctic ambassadors
Those who make it to Antarctica, “one of the most remote, pristine and inhospitable places on earth”, are among an “elite group”, says Elizabeth Heath in The Washington Post. Some come for the intimate wildlife encounters, others to see calving glaciers and climate change in action. But whatever the reason, expedition teams hope passengers will return home as ambassadors for Antarctica – “messengers for the need to arrest climate change and save not just Antarctica, but the rest of the world’s wild places”.
“Tourism doesn’t ‘benefit’ Antarctica,” Sven Lindblad of Lindblad Expeditions, the carbon-neutral cruise operator set up by his father, tells Heath. There are no local communities who can hope to benefit economically. Rather, the benefit derived from tourism to Antarctica is in helping people to “understand the implications of climate change”. The animals of Antarctica play their part too, says Heath. “Unscripted interactions” with penguins and whales tend to “make a big impression” on visitors.
from Moneyweek RSS Feed https://moneyweek.com/spending-it/travel-and-holidays/603294/a-cruise-to-antarctica-the-last-pristine-wilderness
via IFTTT
Can bitcoin survive governments’ monopoly on coercion?
The UK was not prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic. We aren’t prepared for much else in the way of crisis either: there are, for example, no plans in place should solar flares knock out our electricity supplies, or should terrorists attack us with anthrax.
So said Dominic Cummings when he gave evidence to a Commons committee earlier this week. Both of the latter events might seem unlikely – but a year ago so did being ordered to stay in your houses indefinitely while Cummings and Boris Johnson bickered about Matt Hancock’s integrity.
There isn’t much we can do about how the government prepares for crisis. We can, however, think about how we prepare – how we protect ourselves from pandemics, solar flares and, of course, governments’ behaviour. For lots of people these days, one part of the answer is cryptocurrencies, and bitcoin in particular.
We try to be open minded on this (I even hold some small part of a bitcoin myself), but the one pro-bitcoin argument we have never quite been able to accept is that a cryptocurrency can ever operate in a separate realm from global governments. It can’t. If at any point governments feel there is any real monetary threat from cryptos, we said, holders will fast find out what sovereign means.
Governments have a firm monopoly on coercion: if they would like, say, your bitcoin key, a full record of your crypto transactions or perhaps 40% of your bitcoin itself in a one-off wealth tax, they will have it.
There’s been plenty of hints that this is the case over the last few weeks: the US Treasury (irritated about the risk of tax evasion) has suggested that all crypto transfers worth more than $10,000 will have to reported to the tax authorities in future; China has effectively banned financial institutions from accepting or exchanging cryptos; and the European Central Bank has made its feelings clear by noting bitcoin’s “exorbitant carbon footprint” and use for various “illicit” activities.
Non-state-sponsored cryptos (state-sponsored ones are coming) may have some value or not (the Bank of England’s governor Andrew Bailey is very clear that they have “no intrinsic value”). But they are not actually currencies.
So they probably aren’t something to rely on for holding their value (or exchangeability) in a crisis.
What is (a basement full of canned food and gas masks aside)? We’d still go with gold. Central banks hold a lot of gold: they have an interest in making cryptos valueless – they have no interest in making gold valueless.
This will take some time to play out. But while we watch and wait, we are at least moving away from the Covid-19 crisis. With that in mind it’s time to take another look at EU markets: some countries have finally got a grip on vaccinations to the extent that they can begin to reopen properly.
It may also be the time for investors to think explore how to take advantage of the green revolution. The levels of grandstanding about this have been much accelerated by Covid-19, as have the share prices of many of the firms operating in the area. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way in.
The key thing to remember here: creating “clean” energy involves using a lot of pretty grubby metals. Have a look at some of those operating in Latin America: James McKeigue reckons you can still get in before the crowds.
from Moneyweek RSS Feed https://moneyweek.com/investments/alternative-finance/bitcoin-crypto/603320/governments-have-a-monopoly-on-coercion-so
via IFTTT
Daily Market Outlook, May 28, 2021
from Tickmill Expert Blog - Forex Traders Blog https://www.tickmill.com/blog/daily-market-outlook-may-28-2021"
via IFTTT
Market Update – May 28 – US Inflation & Stimulus in focus
Market News Today – Treasuries slumped after news President Biden would offer a $6 tln spending plan on Friday. Gilts led a sell off in EGBs yesterday after hawkish leaning comments from BoE’s Vlieghe hinted at the possibility of an early rate hike. Wall Street was generally firmer on reflation trades and the stimulus news, though the major indexes also lost altitude into the close as the administration also indicated it wanted to make capital gains tax increase retroactive to April. As for the data, the mix numbers didn’t provided any, clear directional clues. BoJ is reportedly mulling an extension of the pandemic relief program as Japan prepares to extend its state of emergency. Stock markets at least moved broadly higher across the Asia=Pacific region. JPN225 jumped 2.1%, at 29,127.
Today, stock markets are not really spooked and GER30 and UK100 are up 0.3% and 0.4% respectively, alongside broad gains in US futures. In the meantime, German import prices released and jumped 10.3% by/y in April, the highest reading since December 2010 and up from 6.9% y/y in the previous month. Base effects from energy prices remain the main driving factor, with oil prices up nearly 200%, prices for mineral oil products nearly 80% and natural gas up nearly 60%.
In FX markets, NZD eased across the board, while USD and Yen were sought. NZDUSD is at 0.7240 (200-period EMA). Both EUR and GBP moved lower against the Dollar, with EURUSD at 1.2175 and Cable at 1.4105. USOIL rallied to $67.16. Gold is at $1889.30 ahead of today’s data.
Today: Local data releases today are likely to support the recovery story, with Eurozone ESI economic confidence, and the key U. data in the PM session, i.e. PCE, Michigan Index and Good Trade Balance. The G7 meeting of Finance Ministers and central bankers may also attract some attention.
Biggest Mover @ (07:30 GMT – NZDUSD +0.65% ) NZDUSD dipped to 0.7240. In the 1 hour chart, faster MAs remain aligned lower, RSI 31 and still sloping, MACD histogram & signal line turned below zero. H1 ATR 0.0010, Daily ATR 0.0069.
Click here to access our Economic Calendar
Andria Pichidi
Market Analyst
Disclaimer: This material is provided as a general marketing communication for information purposes only and does not constitute an independent investment research. Nothing in this communication contains, or should be considered as containing, an investment advice or an investment recommendation or a solicitation for the purpose of buying or selling of any financial instrument. All information provided is gathered from reputable sources and any information containing an indication of past performance is not a guarantee or reliable indicator of future performance. Users acknowledge that any investment in Leveraged Products is characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty and that any investment of this nature involves a high level of risk for which the users are solely responsible and liable. We assume no liability for any loss arising from any investment made based on the information provided in this communication. This communication must not be reproduced or further distributed without our prior written permission.
from HF Analysis /240320/
via IFTTT
Dollar Boosted by Higher Yields; Inflation Data Due
from Forex News https://www.investing.com/news/forex-news/dollar-boosted-by-higher-yields-inflation-data-due-2517895
via IFTTT
Dollar Up Ahead of U.S. Inflation Data, Pound Moves on BOE Rate Hike Expectations
from Forex News https://www.investing.com/news/forex-news/dollar-up-ahead-of-us-inflation-data-pound-moves-on-boe-rate-hike-expectations-2517891
via IFTTT
China Seeks to Slow Yuan Gains With Weaker-Than-Expected Fixing
from Forex News https://www.investing.com/news/forex-news/china-seeks-to-slow-yuan-gains-with-weakerthanexpected-fixing-2517849
via IFTTT
British pound gains boost from BoE, dollar looks to inflation data
from Forex News https://www.investing.com/news/economy/british-pound-gains-boost-from-boe-dollar-looks-to-inflation-data-2517812
via IFTTT
Thursday, May 27, 2021
Nikkei (JP225), H1 testing support, potential for a bounce
from Tickmill Expert Blog - Forex Traders Blog https://www.tickmill.com/blog/nikkei-jp225-h1-testing-support-potential-for-a-bounce"
via IFTTT
EURUSD, H4 seeing strong bullish momentum and support from the ascending trend line
from Tickmill Expert Blog - Forex Traders Blog https://www.tickmill.com/blog/eurusd-h4-seeing-strong-bullish-momentum-and-support-from-the-ascending-trend-line"
via IFTTT
Don’t count resources out
Commodities have performed poorly over the past year, but they tend to move in long and volatile cycles. from Moneyweek RSS Feed https://m...
-
The new strain of covid found in South Africa could disrupt plans by governments and central banks to rebuild economies. Financial markets a...
-
Fidelity “FIS” is a global financial services technology company and a leader in providing technology solutions to merchants, banks and cap...
-
Asian Equities Sink on Covid FearsIt’s been a mixed start to the week for global equities benchmarks with US and European asset markets rema...
