The Fallout from SVB has only just Begun
Swift Action by the Fed and around the globe has averted a major tech catastrophe, but the Silicon Valley Bank debacle highlights failure and further crisis to come. Hard Hats Stay On!
Blain's Morning Porridge
Financial Commentary for Smart People
Blain's Morning Porridge
Financial Commentary for Smart People
Bill Blain
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.
This is not about Banks – This is a Valuation and Private Asset Crisis
Markets are in a fluster over US banks, but that’s not the real problem. There is a looming crisis about to roil markets stemming from inflated valuations in the Private Asset sector. This is going to get really messy. Hard Hats on!
What will China do?
Analysts and big money say it’s time to reinvest in China on the back of growth and rising prosperity. But global headlines point to rising geopolitical confrontation which could see China sanctioned, or even a hot war with the US. The real issue may be China’s rapidly declining demographics.
International Women’s Day and The Conundrum at the Heart of the Bond Market..
Make the world a better place by enabling women on International Women’s Day! And, Bond Markets need to a rethink.
Aston Martin and the UK – Who Are We Kidding?
Aston Martin’s extraordinary rally on the back of a F1 podium place squeezed out the shorts as fans backed their belief by buying the stock. The reality for the UK is bleaker – the UK budget next week (March 15) will do little to inspire global enthusiasm for the decaying economy. The UK needs something visionary and new!
Directionless Markets – the biggest threat and an opportunity for instability.
There is nothing as dangerous for markets as directionless markets and a deep threat board. Place your chips accordingly…
Note to Sir Keir Starmer: Clarkson’s Farm and the Hamble Quarry demonstrate how Bureaucracy is killing UK Growth
Labour Leader Keir Starmer has announced growth is a core mission for the next UK government. He should look how Clarkson’s Diddley Squat Farm and the threat to obliterate my village of Hamble with a wholly unnecessary gravel quarry demonstrate how the UK’s local planning and over-regulation stifles growth, hope, and expectations. The process isn’t fit for any purpose. Bureaucrats have anything but the interests of local people in mind. Big money walks all over them.
Ukraine – how will it finish? How badly will Russia lose?
Nearly a year on Ukraine is unbeaten. How will it end, and how will markets react? Putin is upping the stakes, hoping he can bluff and threaten his way to a result. It’s not about Ukraine surviving, but what happens if Putin loses badly and Russia collapses as a failed state. Sanctions don’t work – what else can the West do?