ill Blain is a published author on financial markets, contributor and editor of the Morning Porridge. He is a well-known market commentor, and a practicing investment banker in the alternative private debt and equity sector.
His day job combines his role as Strategist for Shard Capital, the leading investment management firm, and heading the firm’s Alternatives Group – financing Private debt and equity deals, and direct lending transactions. His clients include sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, insurance and pension managers, credit funds and family offices.
The UK attracted a record £137 bln order book for its £10 bln Green Gilt. But what does the Green Gilt achieve? Its marketing puff. It may disguise how ill-considered and ultimately self-defeating the Government’s rush to looking green has been. No matter how well intentioned a Green Gilt is – its style over substance, papering over the cracks in a confused and contradictory long-term climate-change mitigation strategy.
Evergrande’s imminent default is rocking markets – but few believe the collapse of a Chinese property developer could trigger a global financial crisis. What if Evergrande is just a symptom of a deeper malaise within the Chinese economy and its political/business structures? Maybe there is more at stake than we realise? What if Emperor Xi decides he needs a distraction?
The most destructive rock falls start with a single pebble trigging a cascading chain reaction. Are markets heading towards a cascading crash as spiking energy costs join inflation and supply chains on the list of likely meltdown trigger points? Or should we relax?
Stock markets feel like they are running out of momentum – but that should not lead to fears of a no-see-um crash, rather a more fundamental assessment of the reasons why? In the UK, Plan B – National Economic Suicide by winter Lockdowns – looks on the cards. And, despite all the wonders of Big Tech and promises about how much better it makes our lives – most of it is pretty pants.
The market is worrying about the potential of an October crash, but what might trigger it? Two suspects: a resurgent Coronavirus and/or a global supply chain cardiac triggering stagflation?
And top tip from my father: teach your kids to Ski, Sail and play Tennis!
The UK’s decision to hike taxes and put a sticking plaster on the cash-haemorrhaging NHS highlights serious issues for Soveriegn Debt Investors. Expectations on interest rates and currency markets are one issue, but the competency of governments to manage the quantum of debt raised through the pandemic and avoid rising uncertainty will be increasingly under the microscope.
