The moralisers and instant historians have been out in force over the weekend to comment on the unfolding Greek economic crisis. The IMF, the EU
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The trouble with bull markets
There is a good reason why we lack a definitive account of what characterises the end of bull markets, in the sense of a prescriptive set of conditions that must be met for such an outcome to be logically anticipated by investors. Such a set of rules would of course be self-fulfilling (and therefore worthless) if widely known and acted upon. Only with hindsight, when earnings and economic data are revised to accord with reality, do we typically discover for certain what should have told us the end was approaching. What we do know from historical precedent is that bull markets (a) tend to end with a whimper, not a bang and (b) are rarely triggered by specific causes that have been prominently highlighted for months in advance. Given their current dominance of the headlines, it seems unlikely therefore that either a new Greek crisis or a September interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve will be the trigger that abruptly brings the current bull market to an end.
Fiscal pain is the only election certainty
Pious hope of the week: the estimable Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says in The Times today that it would be
Inveighing against economic vandalism
Bruce Stout, manager of the Murray International investment trust, whose shareholders have tripled their money over the last ten years, inveighs against the “economic vandalism”
The house price/general election nexus
One of the reasons I gave up being a full-time business journalist in favour of a career in investment was the fear that I might
Reality and euphoria in the equity market
In the modern era strong equity market performance in January is not, as used to be believed in days gone by, a reliable forerunner of
Jonathan Davis 