INSIGHT

The doldrums

The summer saw markets extend the pre-existing moribund state into out and out docility. There is a growing acceptance among financial institutions that central banks will apply the sedative of monetary policy should any instability emerge.

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Snapshot: Russia

Gazprom earned $32bn last year and is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world. In a world of overpriced companies it looks startlingly cheap trading at just 2.7x earnings.

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Mexican bandit

The Economist highlighted that Basilio Gonzalez is an “unusually well paid civil servant”. He earns $213,000 a year, which is not bad for a 70 year old. What catches the eye is that his job is President of the National Minimum Salary Commission.

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Fiji water

The environmental impact of extended supply chains is increasingly coming under scrutiny. Mark Johnson of Warwick Business School analysed the supply chain of the number one US importer of bottled water: Fiji water.

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Housing – the invisibubble

Housing prices up by 9.9%” ONS.
“How Help to Buy helped to fuel London’s property bubble” Daily Telegraph.
“The average annual gain over the next five years will be around six per cent” Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

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The Oracle speaks

In the days before international coordinated banking regulation it was often claimed that the Governor of the Bank of England merely had to raise his eyebrow in an expression of displeasure and the recipient bank would get the message and stop misbehaving.

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A gilt free affair

A vast pool of liquidity has been thrown at the global economic system by the central banks since the credit crunch. One of the results has been flattening of all yields and general asset price inflation.

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Snapshot: Rogue bees

We are all familiar with the waggle-dance of the honey bee – the hyperactive figure of eight dance undertaken by returning bees to share with the hive information relating to the location of food so that other bees can forage the same source.

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Data lies

This is the term used to describe the practise of using distorted statistical graphics to deceive. In most cases this takes the form of misrepresenting the data by using an inconsistent visual representation.

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A question of trust – the 12 and 2 rule

When looking to appoint a new professional adviser as a potential buyer inevitably you are faced with a situation where you are effectively buying a promise (or in most cases multiple promises).

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