Buy-to-Let After Section 24: the Arithmetic That Changed
Section 24 stopped individual landlords deducting mortgage interest and replaced it with a 20% tax reduction. On the same flat, that turn...
· 11 min read
LedgerTouch Intelligence | Market Analysis & Portfolio Commentary
Car Finance Compared: PCP, HP, Lease and Paying Cash
On the same £30,000 car at the same 6.9% APR, the monthly payment ranges 73% across PCP, hire purchase, leasing and cash. The four-year t...
· 12 min read
Avalanche vs Snowball: £687 on a £10,000 Debt
Paying the highest-rate debt first minimises interest. On a £10,000 UK profile at June 2026 Bank of England rates, it saved £687 and thre...
· 10 min read
ESPP Discount Maths: 15% Off, 70% a Year
A 15% employee share purchase discount is a 17.6% gain on the cash you pay, and your contributions are only committed for about half the ...
· 13 min read
Fixed vs Variable Mortgages: 270 Start Dates, £84,767 Apart
On the Bank of England's own rate series, a £200,000 lifetime tracker paid less interest than a five-year fix in 210 of 270 five-year win...
· 9 min read
Mortgage Overpayment vs Investing: the Tax-Adjusted Maths
The usual advice is to compare your mortgage rate with the return you expect from investing. That breaks in three places: an overpayment ...
· 10 min read
Offset Mortgage Maths: 4.82% Tax-Free Is 8.03% Taxable
Cash offset against a mortgage earns the mortgage rate and is never taxed. Grossed up, a 4.82% offset is worth 8.03% to a higher-rate tax...
· 10 min read
RSU Tax UK: What a Vest Actually Costs You
RSUs are taxed as employment income on the day they vest, at the market value of the shares. HMRC's own example withholds 42%. On a £90,0...
· 12 min read
UK Credit Scores: You Have Several, Lenders Use None
Experian scores you 0 to 1250, ClearScore 0 to 1000, Credit Karma 0 to 710 — three scales over three different files. The lender you appl...
· 12 min read
EMI, SAYE and SIP Compared: Tax at Every Stage
The UK has four tax-advantaged share schemes and they are charged at three different rates plus nil. On the same £100,000 of value, a hig...
· 13 min read
Asset Location: What Belongs in an ISA and What Doesn't
Allocation decides what you own. Location decides how much of it you keep. In the 2026 to 2027 tax year a higher-rate taxpayer pays 40% o...
· 10 min read
The Cost of Investing in the UK: 0.49% Across 7 Layers
Platform fee, fund charge, dealing costs inside the fund, spread, currency conversion, stamp duty, tax. Seven layers, seven different uni...
· 11 min read
How to Read a Fund Factsheet, Line by Line
Two real published factsheets, read line by line. The 0.19% charge that excludes dealing costs, the benchmark that comes in two versions,...
· 12 min read
ISA vs Pension: the Arithmetic at Each Tax Band
One marginal £1,000 of gross salary buys £900 of pension or £720 of ISA at basic rate in 2026 to 2027. Which one is worth more at the end...
· 10 min read
How Much You Need to Retire: the Spending Arithmetic
Build the number from what retired households actually spend, subtract the State Pension, and divide what's left by a withdrawal rate. On...
· 10 min read
The Size Premium After Banz: 45 Years, -0.30% a Year
Banz documented the size effect in 1981, making it the oldest anomaly in finance. Since April 1981 the Fama/French size factor has compou...
· 12 min read
Annuity vs Drawdown: The Break-Even Age at 5% Growth
A £100,000 pot at 65 bought £8,040 a year for life in August 2026. Drawing the same income from an invested pot empties it at 83.4 on a 5...
· 9 min read
Bond Funds vs Individual Bonds: Where the Crossover Falls
An individual bond repays par on a date; a bond fund never matures. Priced on 2022’s 236 basis point move in the 10-year Treasury yield, ...
· 11 min read
Commodity Returns: Spot, Roll Yield and the T-Bill Leg
A commodity futures index pays you three things: the futures price, the roll, and interest on the collateral. From 2 January 1991 to 31 J...
· 11 min read
Credit Spreads: What the Extra Yield Actually Pays For
Over 1866-2008 corporate credit spreads averaged about 153 basis points a year while actual default losses averaged roughly 75. The rest ...
· 11 min read
Critical Illness Cover: Gleason 7 and the 24-Hour Test
A critical illness policy doesn’t pay because you’re seriously ill. It pays because a histology report or a troponin assay matches a defi...
· 11 min read
Currency Conversion Costs: 0.25% to 0.99% on UK Platforms
Seven UK platforms charge between 0.25% and 0.99% to turn pounds into dollars, and every one of them quotes that margin over a rate you c...
· 12 min read
Fund Domicile and Withholding Tax: 15% Either Way
An Irish-domiciled S&P 500 fund and a US-domiciled one hold the same shares. For a UK investor both give up 15% of the US dividends, beca...
· 12 min read
How Much Life Cover, and For How Long: The Calculation
A multiple of salary contains no term, and the term is most of the answer. The needs calculation has four lines: debts to clear, years of...
· 10 min read
Low Volatility Beat the Market at Half the Risk
Sort US stocks by beta and the riskiest tenth has returned less than the safest tenth since 1963 — 9.53% a year against 10.79%, at more t...
· 12 min read
Backdoor Roth: The Pro-Rata Rule That Ruins It
The backdoor Roth is two steps and an afternoon. Whether the second step costs nothing or thousands depends on money you never touched, b...
· 13 min read
Bed and ISA: What It Costs and What It Buys
Selling outside a wrapper and buying back inside one crystallises a gain today to buy tax freedom later. On a £20,000 holding with an £8,...
· 13 min read
Nominee Accounts: Who Legally Owns Your Shares
Your broker isn’t the owner of your shares and neither are you. A nominee company holds legal title, you hold the beneficial interest, an...
· 12 min read
Pension Annual Allowance: the Taper and Carry Forward
The annual allowance is £60,000 for 2026 to 2027, and it counts your employer's contributions too. Above £260,000 of adjusted income it f...
· 13 min read
Required Minimum Distributions: The Divisor and the Penalty
A required minimum distribution is one division: last 31 December's balance, divided by a number from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. At ...
· 12 min read
Salary Sacrifice: the National Insurance Arithmetic
Salary sacrifice and an ordinary pension contribution attract identical income tax relief. National Insurance is the entire difference: 8...
· 10 min read
Securities Lending: the Manager's Cut, 7.7% to 37.5%
Index funds lend their holdings out for a fee, and the manager keeps a share of it. That share runs from 7.7% at Vanguard's Irish range t...
· 11 min read
The Total Cost of a Fund: 0.20% Headline, 0.65% Paid
The ongoing charges figure is the smallest line on the bill. Build the stack from the published disclosures — the fund's own dealing cost...
· 12 min read
UK Investment Tax Rates and Allowances: 2026 to 2027
Every rate, band, allowance and threshold a UK investor needs for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, in tables, each figure read off a gov.uk or ...
· 11 min read
Voluntary National Insurance: What a Class 3 Year Buys
A Class 3 voluntary National Insurance year costs £956.80 in the 2026 to 2027 tax year and adds about £6.89 a week to the state pension f...
· 12 min read
401(k) vs IRA: What Each Account Is Actually Better At
For the 2026 tax year the IRS caps 401(k) salary deferrals at $24,500 and total IRA contributions at $7,500. The gap in headline limits i...
· 13 min read
Accumulation vs Income Units: Taxed on Cash You Never See
Two share classes of one fund hold identical assets and charge an identical 0.23%. Outside an ISA the accumulating one taxes you on incom...
· 10 min read
Bond Duration: What a 1% Rate Move Actually Costs
Duration says a bond loses its duration number in percent for every point yields rise. On a 100bp move that is close enough. On the move ...
· 10 min read
How ETF Creation and Redemption Keeps Price Near NAV
An ETF tracks its net asset value because a handful of firms can swap the fund for its contents. They are not obliged to. Grayscale's bit...
· 11 min read
FSCS Protection: £120,000 Deposits vs £85,000 Investments
FSCS compensates you when an authorised firm fails, not when your investment falls. Deposits are covered to £120,000 and investments to £...
· 11 min read
Income Protection: The Definitions That Decide a Claim
Insurers accepted 86% of individual income protection claims on 2024 data, against 98% across protection as a whole. The gap sits in two ...
· 11 min read
Index-Linked Bonds: The Uplift, the Lag, and 2022
Index-linked gilts and TIPS uprate your principal against a price index published three months earlier. In 2022 that lag paid more than t...
· 10 min read
The ISA Rules That Bite: Flexibility, Transfers, Death
The 2026 to 2027 ISA allowance is £20,000, and almost every guide stops there. The rules that actually cost people money sit underneath i...
· 13 min read
Momentum Pays 6% a Year. Then It Crashes 78%.
Momentum is the largest of the classic equity factor premiums — 6.19% a year in the Fama/French series since 1927, against 3.59% for valu...
· 12 min read
Pension Tax Relief: Relief at Source vs Net Pay
UK pension tax relief arrives by one of two mechanisms, and your employer picked yours. Relief at source adds 20% to the pot and stops th...
· 13 min read
Physical vs Synthetic ETFs: the 10% Counterparty Cap
A swap-based ETF exposes you to a bank. UCITS caps that exposure at 10% of assets, and the big providers reset it to zero every trading d...
· 13 min read
Platform Fees: Where a Flat Fee Overtakes a Percentage
The headline platform fee is one of six charges, and it decides the ranking only over a narrow range of portfolio sizes. Build the full s...
· 9 min read
REITs vs Direct Property: Same Buildings, Different Risk
In 2022 US equity REITs returned -24.95% and the appraised MSCI UK Annual Property Index returned -7.1%. Almost none of that gap is the b...
· 10 min read
Tracking Difference vs Tracking Error: The 0.32% Gap
Two S&P 500 ETFs, one charging 0.03% and one charging 0.12% all-in. In calendar 2025 the expensive one beat the index by 0.32 points and ...
· 12 min read
UK Dividend and Savings Tax: When 20% Becomes 45%
UK income is taxed in a fixed order: salary and pension first, savings interest next, dividends on top. That order, plus three allowances...
· 10 min read
UK Inheritance Tax Thresholds and the 60% Taper Zone
The nil rate band is £325,000 and the residence nil rate band adds £175,000, both frozen to April 2031. Above £2,000,000 the residence ba...
· 13 min read
UK Share Matching Rules: Same Day, 30 Days, Section 104
Sell part of a holding you built at different prices and HMRC decides which shares went, not you. The order is fixed: same day, then the ...
· 13 min read
The Value Premium After 1992: 1.5% a Year, Not 4.8%
Fama and French documented the value premium in 1992. Their own HML series compounded at 4.84% a year across the sample they studied, and...
· 11 min read
Wash Sale Rule: The 61-Day Window and the IRA Trap
Section 1091 disallows a loss if substantially identical stock is acquired within 30 days either side of the sale. The loss usually survi...
· 10 min read
Yield Curve Inversion: Every Lead Time Since 1966
Every inverted US yield curve since 1966, matched to the recession that followed it. The lead times run from 5 months to 39 months, two i...
· 13 min read
Trending Markets: Why the Calendar Beat the Band
A five-asset portfolio rebalanced each December scored 0.43 on Sharpe from 1972 to 2014. A 20% tolerance band scored 0.40 at the same cos...
· 9 min read
Bitcoin at 1-5% of a 60/40: 0.6 to 3.2 Points a Year
A 1% bitcoin sleeve added 0.64 points a year to a 60/40 since 2015 and a 5% sleeve added 3.19. Shift the start to 2025 and the 5% sleeve ...
· 10 min read
Underspending in Retirement: Dying With Too Much
US retirees with $500k kept 88% of it after 20 years. English financial wealth falls 31% between 70 and 90 while remaining life falls 75%...
· 10 min read
25x or 30x? The Arithmetic of a Retirement Number
A 3.9% withdrawal rate implies 25.6 times spending; 3.3% implies 30.3 times. The reciprocal arithmetic, its steepness, and what a State P...
· 10 min read
The Rebalancing Bonus Is Real, but Smaller Than You Think
Vanguard's 92-year test: a 60/40 rebalanced yearly returned 8.19%, never rebalancing 8.74%. The rebalancing bonus is mostly risk control,...
· 9 min read
Position Sizing When an Asset Can Go to Zero
A total loss at 5% weight needs a 5.26% gain elsewhere. What Bessembinder, Kelly and Thorp show about sizing assets that can plausibly re...
· 10 min read
Checking Your Portfolio Daily: What It Costs
In a 1997 experiment, people shown results every round bet 50.5% of their money. Those shown results every third round bet 67.4%. Same od...
· 9 min read
Bullion, ETCs or Miners: Three Different Gold Exposures
Gold miners beat bullion by 2.3 points a year over the decade to May 2026. Strip out one year and gold wins. What each exposure tracks, c...
· 10 min read
Performance Chasing: What Happens After Money Arrives
Specialised ETFs lost 30% risk-adjusted in five years post-launch. What fund-flow data says about returns after investors pile in, and wh...
· 9 min read
Overconfidence and Turnover: The Cost of Trading More
Overconfident investors trade more and earn less. What the Barber and Odean turnover evidence measures, what it costs, and where the mech...
· 10 min read
Lump Sum vs Cost Averaging: What 46 Years Show
Vanguard tested lump sum against 12-month cost averaging across three markets from 1976 to 2022. Investing at once won 61.6% to 73.7% of ...
· 9 min read
A 50% Loss Needs 100%: The Recovery Arithmetic
A 50% fall needs a 100% gain. What that cost in real drawdowns since 1871, why bonds are not exempt, and why the arithmetic alone ranks n...
· 9 min read
Loss Aversion: Where the 2x Figure Comes From
The 2.25 loss aversion coefficient came from 25 graduate students in 1992. A 607-estimate meta-analysis says 1.96. A re-analysis of it sa...
· 9 min read
Harvard's Crypto Stake: 21% of a 13F, 0.8% of Assets
Harvard's bitcoin ETF was 21% of its 13F and 0.8% of its endowment. What institutions really allocate to crypto, and why that case doesn'...
· 10 min read
Gold at a Record: Entry Timing vs a Strategic Weight
Gold set a record $5,405 fix in January 2026. What 58 years of LBMA data show about buying at a record high versus holding a fixed rebala...
· 10 min read
The Three Charges That Quietly Eat an Overseas Portfolio
UK rate cards priced out: £99 versus £15 to convert £10,000, custody from £72 to £350 on £100,000, and a 0.56-point withholding tax gap a...
· 9 min read
The Fragile Decade: 77% of Your Withdrawal Rate
Returns in the decade around retirement explain most of the lifetime result. The evidence on why, and what de-risking into that window ac...
· 9 min read
The Five-Asset Portfolio: Where the Risk Actually Sits
Extending a 60/40 to five sleeves cut modelled volatility from 15.7% to 12.4%, yet equities still supplied 76% of the risk. The diversifi...
· 10 min read
Why a 0.10% Fund Actually Costs You 0.19% a Year
Vanguard's FTSE 250 ETF charges 0.10% and trailed its index by 0.19 points. Where spreads, market impact, index turnover, cash drag and l...
· 10 min read
60/40, 80/20, 100% Equity: Crash Depth and Recovery
Three allocations through five crashes on one 1928-2025 series: how far each fell, how long each stayed underwater in real terms, and wha...
· 10 min read
Concentrated in Employer Stock: a Decision Framework
Only 42.6% of US stocks beat Treasury bills over their lifetimes. What that record, and a 42% diversification cost estimate, mean for emp...
· 10 min read
Where Emergency Cash Sits: Liquidity, Yield and Risk
UK easy-access accounts passed on 28% of the base rate rise; notice and fixed terms passed 51%. How emergency cash homes compare on acces...
· 9 min read
Should Part of an Emergency Fund Be Invested?
Cash buffers give up about 6% a year in real return. But since 1948 a 20% drawdown was twice as likely in months when unemployment was ri...
· 10 min read
How Many Stocks Is Diversified? 30 Isn't the Answer
The classic answer is 30 stocks, from variance reduction. Bessembinder found 4.31% of US firms created all net market wealth. Two very di...
· 9 min read
Selling Winners, Holding Losers: The Disposition Effect
Investors realise 14.8% of paper gains but only 9.8% of paper losses. The evidence on the disposition effect, what it costs, and the case...
· 10 min read
Buying Dips vs Monthly Investing: 100 Years Tested
A wait-for-the-dip rule tested against steady monthly investing on 100 years of daily US market and Treasury bill data. The threshold dec...
· 10 min read
The Debasement Trade: Gold Rose 67%, Bitcoin Fell 6%
Gold rose 67% in 2025 while bitcoin fell 6%. What regressions, panel data and central bank buying really show about the fiscal debasement...
· 10 min read
Hedging Bonds Halved Volatility. Equities: It Depends
Why the standard rule hedges foreign bonds and leaves equities unhedged, the volatility maths behind it, and how a UK, US or Japanese bas...
· 10 min read
Crypto Rebalancing: 516 Trades From One 5% Band
A 5% tolerance band around a 5% bitcoin sleeve fired 516 times in ten years. The same band on the equity sleeve fired five times. The gap...
· 9 min read
Correlation Is a Fair-Weather Friend
A correlation of 0.50 reads as 0.21 in calm months and 0.62 in volatile ones. Why estimated diversification decays, and how the equity-bo...
· 10 min read
Sizing a Satellite: When It Starts Running the Plan
A 10% bitcoin satellite supplied 28.1% of portfolio variance over ten years. Gold at the same weight supplied 2.2%. Tracking error explai...
· 9 min read
When Returns Overtake Contributions: Year 16 at 5%
At a 5% real return, annual gains first beat annual contributions in year 16 and cumulative gains in year 27. Neither date moves if you s...
· 10 min read
Rebalancing With Contributions: Where It Stops Working
New money can hold a 60/40 on target until the portfolio passes about 17 times annual savings. Past that, the median year's drift outruns...
· 10 min read
Central Banks Bought 863 Tonnes. It Wasn't a Record.
Central banks bought 863.3 tonnes of gold in 2025, down 21%. What the official-sector data shows, and why reserve-manager motives don't r...
· 10 min read
Dry Powder or Drag? What Portfolio Cash Really Costs
US bills returned 0.5% a year after inflation since 1900 against 6.6% for equities. What a permanent cash sleeve costs, and whether waiti...
· 10 min read
Do Cash Buckets Work? 21 Countries, 115 Years
Bucket strategies mostly lose to a rebalanced portfolio. Across 21 countries and 115 years, a five-year cash reserve failed 27.9% of 30-y...
· 10 min read
Bitcoin After the ETFs: Volatility Fell, Correlation Didn't
Bitcoin's volatility fell from 58.3% to 47.5% after US spot ETFs launched, but its weekly correlation with the S&P 500 moved 0.002. The e...
· 10 min read
Is Bitcoin Digital Gold? The Correlation Record
Bitcoin's weekly correlation with the S&P 500 rose from 0.04 to 0.52. With gold it is 0.11 over a decade. What the stress episodes since ...
· 10 min read
100 Minus Age: The Rule vs Real Glide Paths
Vanguard holds 50% equities at 65 where the 100-minus-age rule says 35%. What provider glide paths, human capital research and the critic...
· 10 min read
How Long Bear Markets Last: Recovery Times Since 1968
Eight major US drawdowns from the December 1968 peak onward. The median took 31.5 months to reach a new high in nominal price terms and 6...
· 10 min read
Diversification in a Crisis: What Actually Worked
Across the six times developed-world equity fell 20% or more since 1990, 10-year Treasuries and Treasury bills carried almost all of the ...
· 12 min read
Volatility vs Drawdown: The Risk You Actually Feel
US stocks in the 1970s and the 1980s had annualised standard deviations of 13.41% and 13.17% — as close to identical as two decades get. ...
· 11 min read
Emergency Fund Size: Past the 3-6 Month Rule
The three-to-six-month range traces to financial-planning practice, not to a study. What has been measured is how long unemployment lasts...
· 10 min read
Fund Fees Compounded: 0.2% vs 1% Over 30 Years
Over 30 years at a 6.6% gross return, a 1% annual fee turns a £640,667 pot into £503,236. The £137,431 gap is 21.5% of the lower-fee bala...
· 11 min read
Fund Overlap: Five Funds, 39% in Ten Companies
Five funds — a total-market fund, an S&P 500 fund, a growth fund, a tech fund and an innovation fund — hold 1,533 companies between them,...
· 10 min read
Home Bias: How Much of Your Equities Are Foreign
The United States was 62.09% of world equity value at 30 June 2026; Australia was 1.56%. That single fact makes the home-bias question a ...
· 11 min read
Your House as a Portfolio Asset: Housing vs Equities
Across 16 countries since 1870, housing's real total return of 7.05% a year edged equities' 6.89% with less than half the volatility. Tho...
· 12 min read
Does Writing an Investment Plan Actually Help?
An investment policy statement is a rule written before the decision arrives. CFA Institute lists 16 elements, CalPERS runs 120 pages, an...
· 11 min read
Portfolio Drift: How Far a 60/40 Wanders in One Year
A 60/40 portfolio left alone ends the year a median 3.2 percentage points off target. But the distribution is lopsided: the biggest singl...
· 10 min read
Rebalancing in a Crash: Evidence From 2008 and 2020
Equities are down 30% and a 60/40 has drifted to roughly 50/50. Moving it back to target beat leaving it alone in both October 2008 and M...
· 12 min read
Risk Tolerance vs Risk Capacity: What Scores Miss
A questionnaire says you are 'moderate'. It's measuring how you feel about risk, not how much of it your plan can absorb, and those answe...
· 10 min read
Safe Withdrawal Rates: The 4% Rule in 17 Countries
The 4% rule came out of one country's data, one 50-year sample and one rigid spending rule. Run the same test across 17 developed markets...
· 10 min read
Sequence Risk: Same Returns, Opposite Outcomes
Run 30 years of real US 60/40 returns forwards and backwards. A $1,000,000 lump sum left alone ends at exactly $5,116,739 either way. Add...
· 11 min read
Three-Fund Portfolio: A Stress Test, 2008 to 2025
Three funds at Vanguard's own 60/40 target weights returned 6.44% a year from 2008 to 2025, or 3.91% after inflation. Nominally 2008 was ...
· 12 min read
Withdrawal Guardrails: The Price of a 5.2% Start
Willing to cut spending when markets fall? Morningstar's 2025 modelling puts the reward at 5.2% instead of 3.9% on the same portfolio. Th...
· 11 min read
The Behavior Gap: What Bad Timing Really Costs
The folklore says your own timing costs you 4% a year. Morningstar's data says 1.2%. A 2026 Financial Analysts Journal paper says the par...
· 8 min read
What Crypto Fund Flow Numbers Do Not Tell You
The weekly digital-asset fund-flow series is widely quoted and routinely misread. Sector AuM fell US$19bn in three weeks of 2026 while ne...
· 6 min read
The Energy Transition Numbers That Move Markets
Battery capacity above 4 TWh, 1.7 mb/d of displaced oil, 7 million charge points. Three of the transition's headline metrics never reach ...
· 6 min read
Eurozone Inflation Reaccelerated and the ECB Hiked
Euro area HICP went from 1.9% in February 2026 to 3.2% in May, then 2.8% in June and 2.9% on the July flash. Energy contributed 128 of th...
· 6 min read
How Much Gold? The 5-10% Case and Its 45-Year Problem
The research most often cited for a 5-10% gold weight tests 2.5% to 10%, over the 20 years from 2005. Widen the window and you find a 45-...
· 8 min read
Can Microsoft's Own Chip Dent NVIDIA's Pricing Power?
Maia 200 shipped in January 2026 with a full published spec. In the two quarters since, NVIDIA's gross margin rose and its data centre re...
· 6 min read
Rebalancing Frequency: Annual vs 5% Threshold Bands
Over 92 years of Vanguard's data, every sensible rebalancing rule landed within 0.2 percentage points a year of every other one. The choi...
· 8 min read
What 20 Years of SPIVA Data Show About Active Funds
Over 20 years, 92% of US large-cap funds trailed the S&P 500. But the odds swing from 70% over 20 years to 100% over 10 years in some cat...
· 8 min read
What the Yield Curve Did in 2026, and What It Signals
The 2s10s spread closed at +45bp on 30 July 2026. It flattened 44bp into June and steepened 15bp in July — and in both legs every maturit...
· 6 min read
China Export Disinflation: The Data Behind the Thesis
US import prices from China fell 1.41% year on year in March 2026 while overall import prices rose 2.26%. Tariffs did not close the chann...
· 5 min read
Oil Spiked to $138 and the Fed Did Nothing
The OECD raised its 2026 US inflation forecast to 4.2% on an oil shock. Brent fell from $138.21 to $69.56 by 6 July 2026 and was back at ...
· 4 min read
What Would Happen If the Fed Scrapped the Dot Plot
Kevin Warsh was confirmed 54-45 on 13 May 2026. The dot plot he may end already spans 100 basis points. Here is what its removal does to ...
· 5 min read
Yen Intervention: 11.7 Trillion Yen, No Lasting Effect
Tokyo's first yen-buying intervention since 2024 moved USD/JPY 2.2% on 30 April 2026. Five weeks later the move was gone. A BoJ hike did ...
· 4 min read
Jobs Report: Unemployment Fell as 396,000 Left Work
US unemployment fell to 4.3% in March 2026 — but the labour force shrank by 396,000 and wage growth hit a five-year low of 3.5%. The sign...
· 4 min read
Gold Demand Hit 5,002t in 2025. Jewellery Fell 18%.
Total gold demand set a record at 5,002.3 tonnes in 2025 — up just 1%. Jewellery fell 18%, ETFs swung 804 tonnes, and central banks slowe...
· 4 min read
Salesforce Is Profitable. Its AI Margins Are Not.
Salesforce guided FY27 operating margin up to 20.9% GAAP. ICONIQ projects 2026 AI product gross margins at 52% — against Salesforce's own...
· 4 min read
NVIDIA at $75B a Quarter: Who Pays the Depreciation
NVIDIA sold $75.2 billion of data-centre hardware in a single quarter. That figure is the hyperscalers' capital expenditure, and it becom...
· 5 min read
Why AI Margins Stall at 52% While Software Makes 80%
ICONIQ data put gross margin on AI products at a projected 52% for 2026. Adobe's subscription gross margin is 91.1%. Software has acquire...
· 5 min read
EV Sales Top 20 Million: China Took 6 in Every 10
The IEA's Global EV Outlook 2026 puts 2025 electric car sales above 20 million, a quarter of all new cars. China sold more than 13 millio...
· 5 min read
Global Debt at 93.9% of GDP: a 117% Tail for 2028
The IMF's April 2026 Fiscal Monitor puts global public debt at 93.9% of GDP, reaching 100% by 2029. The baseline is not the interesting n...
· 5 min read
Google Cloud Margin Hits 32.9% as Capex Doubles
Google Cloud's operating margin reached 32.9% in Q1 2026, up from 17.8% a year earlier, while Alphabet's capital spending more than doubl...
· 5 min read
High-Yield Spreads at 2.84% While the CCC Tail Gaps
The ICE BofA high-yield index spread closed at 2.84% on 30 July 2026, off its June tight. Underneath, the gap between CCC and BB spreads ...
· 5 min read
Why the IMF and World Bank Disagree on Growth
The IMF sees 3.0% global growth in 2026 and the World Bank 2.5%. Read like for like, the two institutions are 0.1 percentage points apart...
· 5 min read
NVIDIA FY2026: $215.9B Revenue, 7.58% Index Weight
NVIDIA's fiscal 2026 revenue was $215.9 billion with $193.7 billion from Data Center. Two customers were 36% of it, and the stock is 7.58...
· 4 min read
Real Yields at 2.41%: Every Basis Point Was Real
The 10-year TIPS yield closed at 2.41% on 30 July 2026 and touched 2.44% three days earlier, its highest since October 2023. Almost the e...
· 5 min read