Putin’s show of strength
The week started off with a meeting between European leaders, Zelensky and the Trump administration. The mood was somewhat elevated compared with the Putin/Trump meeting last Friday. However, the mood soured slightly as an American business in the west of Ukraine was targeted with cruise missiles on Wednesday. Defence stocks mirrored the change in dynamics, moving in unison with the news flow.
Across western markets, the main headlines aside from ‘the powers that be’ meeting about Ukraine, was the slide in technology stocks over fears around AI capability and valuations. The question is whether AI stock valuations are overstretched or whether they are still worth backing?
Most young people I talk to have some type of trading account accessed from their phone. Just a little different from when I was young! Access to information is easy but, when trading, the skill is not believing everything you read. Sorting good information from bad is extremely difficult. All this presents a prime breeding ground for pump and dump strategies.
We take a look at the UK in a bit more detail this week, on the back of inflation hitting 3.8% and the Bank of England expecting the inflation number to be 4% in September. All this is happening when many other European countries are seeing inflation fall. So, what’s happening?
The UK economy faces many challenges. In the immediate term, it is the fiscal debt which likely means a challenging Autumn Budget. We highlight some of the tax hits which may be coming our way.
This week’s content:
- What are the chances of peace?
- Defence sector wobbles
- Tech stocks slide
- What is ‘pump and dump’?
- Dismal productivity has held back the UK
- Why is UK inflation so high?
- What is Rachel Reeves looking to tax now?
- Summary
What are the chances of peace?
It would appear that President Trump simply conveyed Putin’s stance to European leaders and Zelensky.
He obviously wants a deal but doesn’t favour a ceasefire or truce as they seem to get broken. On saying this, such outcomes will be better than nothing. The Putin regime is demanding in return a lifting of all Western sanctions.
For a more permanent arrangement, Ukraine would need to cede territory to Russia, but as we’ve seen before, it doesn’t rule out their coming back again for more. So, we could have more of the same, but possibly (and hopefully), fewer attacks on civilian targets.
Continues…
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