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.
Crypto currencies have confused the way we think about money and wealth. Its deliberate. It helps layer the crypto narrative they are modern and somehow better than fiat money. It’s fake news. Crypto is full of inconsistencies and outright bullsh*t – it’s time regulators did their jobs!
Jay Powell keeps his job and faces the inflation quandary – hiking rates too soon risks recovery, but inflation needs addressed. The likelihood is lower rates for longer – which will juice euphoric markets further. What’s the alternative? Stop buying financial assets and buy the real economy!
Markets are roiled by lockdowns and approaching holidays. Already the guessing season has begun – with predictions running all the way from Gloomy to Dire. Central Banks will be anxious to be seen to be doing the right thing – which probably means more of the same. And investors? Delusional or exploiting the delusion of others.
How much longer can the market madness continue? Traditionally they remain irrational for longer than you can stay solvent. Central banks must be terrified – damned if they act, damned if they don’t. The basis of markets is under threat from unbridled speculation fuelled by their actions.
A new book on the fall of Boeing is getting the headlines this morning. I’ve been arguing it illustrates all the worst excess of capitalism – yet how many investors have called it out? Very few. Why does ESG apparently not apply to Boeing?
Facebook is now Meta, and Meta wants to own the Metaverse. Just what is the Metaverse, what are the opportunities, and can Mark Zuckerberg repeat the success of Facebook by monetising a whole new way of doing business, or is it shaping up to be something much, much more?
Despite Global uncertainty, rising inflation, and potential slowdown, markets remain Euphoric. All irrational markets eventually pop. How much longer can the current market mood be sustained? Longer than we think…
Greta Thunburg was right – there was a lot of blah, blah, blah at COP26, but also positive steps. The perception remains of rising climate risks, and that’s fuelling an increasingly de-growth extreme climate change populist agenda – which could prove even more disastrous than rising temperatures!
