Category: Protected – Watson’s Weekly

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• So May’s revised Brexit deal was rejected by MPs (Wednesday), they also took the prospect of a no-deal off the table (Thursday) – as well as the possibility of a second referendum (Friday) – but did vote for a Brexit delay (Friday). It looks to me like her Brexit deal has a glimmer of a chance of getting through next week as disgruntled eurosceptics face the very stark choice between digging their heels in and facing a long delay (and quite probably a softer Brexit) or getting behind May’s deal and getting on with things after a short extension. I would also have thought that MPs voting down a second referendum would mean that LibDem and Labour MPs would also have to face the same two options. This is a really good flowchart on the current situation regarding possible Brexit outcomes
• Elsewhere, Turkey fell into recession (Tuesday), putting pressure on longtime political bruiser President Erdogan as opposition parties have criticised his ruling party for presiding over the country’s current 20% inflation rate and rising unemployment – so they can now add recession to the list. Mexico is trying to talk a good game to avoid recession (Tuesday) as AMLO made a speech 100 days into his presidency

• Tesla made a swift U-turn following last week’s announcement (Tuesday) that the company was going to close down virtually all of its sales outlets and go online in order to keep costs down. Later on in the week, it unveiled the Model Y compact SUV (Friday) which it expects to start delivering in autumn of next year. Tesla’s not had a great record of getting its predictions right on rollouts, but hopefully it’s getting better at this as it ramps up production generally
• VW outlined its electric vehicle ambitions (Wednesday) targeting 70 fully electric models by 2028 – up from an earlier target of 50 by 2025 – and 40% of group sales by 2030 to be battery-powered versus an earlier estimate of 25% by 2025. It did say that there would be big job losses as a result, however
• Nissan announced that it would stop production of Infiniti vehicles at its Sunderland plant (Wednesday). Although this will “only” affect 200 employees out of 7,000 this isn’t going to be great for UK manufacturing sentiment and comes hot on the heels of Honda’s announcement about Swindon and JLR’s cull of 10% of its workforce

• Mothercare decided to offload its Early Learning Centre brand (Wednesday) to pay down debt. The new buyer hinted that ELC shops might return to the high street as a result
• Troubled fashion retailer French Connection announced its first profit in seven years (Wednesday) although sales have fallen. There will probably be a ceiling to the share price as everyone and their dog knows that 72-year old founder Stephen Marks is looking to offload his 42% stake in the company
• Talking of troubled retailers, Superdry’s co-founder Julian Dunkerton upped the ante in his campaign to save the retailer (Friday) and Sports Direct made an offer of a £150m loan to Debenhams (Thursday) with strings attached

• Spotify decided to bite the bullet and filed a competition case with the European Commission (Thursday) because of Apple’s unfair treatment of competitors on its App store
• Google’s YouTube Music launched in India (Thursday) just weeks after Spotify launched there. It’s subscription price is cheaper than Spotify’s and it enters a competitive market with local giants Gaana (which is backed by China’s Tencent) and JioSaavn in addition to Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music

My favourite “alternative” stories this week were Man running race dressed as Big Ben has absolute nightmare in the wind – with hilarious results (The Mirror, Zoe Forsey https://tinyurl.com/yy6wscu4) and then Painting sow Pigcasso hogs the limelight at South Africa farm (Reuters, Alexandra Hudson https://tinyurl.com/yy8pg4ha). There’s nothing like making an already hard run even harder and everyone loves a talented animal!

Have a great weekend!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• It sounded like an agreement on the US-China trade spat was getting closer (Monday) but then it turned out that the US trade deficit was getting wider (Thursday) and I just read today that the US ambassador to China said that an agreement is not actually imminent, one of the main sticking points being how each party would enforce the terms of any deal
• China also revised its GDP growth forecasts down to a range of 6-6.5% (Wednesday) – its slowest annual GDP growth rate for almost thirty years – by targeting a range of 6-6.5%. With this in mind, the Chinese government announced a major stimulus package worth £227bn in higher spending and tax cuts whilst also saying that VAT would be lowered for the manufacturing sector to help it out of the rut it has found itself in. The bad news continued when the General Administration of Customs released data showing that exports had fallen by 20.7% in February versus the previous year after rising by 9.1% in January

• The Chinese tech sector has been suffering of late (Tuesday) as previously red-hot start-ups are cutting costs as the wider economy slows down after years of seemingly-unlimited cash flows. Didi Chuxing (ride-sharing) has cut free snacks and gym membership, ByteDance (internet tech company operating various content platforms, also developer of TikTok) cut its new year bonuses and others are cutting staff, fruitbowls and other perks. It seems that internet user numbers have plateaued while competition has intensified, margins have shrunk and regulations have got tighter. More job cuts are expected
• There’s a real contrast between the winners and losers among car makers in the Chinese market (Tuesday). Losers include Ford (which was late to the China market and has suffered because of an aging model line-up) PSA Group (which owns the Peugeot and Citroen brands and is suffering from its mid-market position where customers are getting increasingly price-conscious) and Jaguar Land Rover (which has suffered from a dent in its reputation following a number of safety recalls and a build-up of inventory). Winners include Toyota (which has benefited from having a reputation for selling good quality, fuel efficient cars and consistently bringing new models to market), Mercedes, BMW and Audi (where wealthier customers have been more insulated from the economic slowdown)

• The US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new antidepressant (Thursday) – made by Johnson & Johnson, called esketamine and branded Spravato – to treat patients who have already tried at least two other antidepressant treatments. It had been given a “Breakthrough therapy” classification, which meant that it was fast-tracked through the approval process. It is the first new antidepressant to get approval since Prozac was released 30 years ago
• FDA chief Scott Gottlieb resigned (Wednesday) for personal reasons as head of America’s powerful Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is a big deal because he has been instrumental in pushing some major initiatives during his tenure – including a proposed ban on menthol cigarettes, the speeding up of generic medicine approval and restriction in the use of flavoured e-cigarettes among teenagers (after having helped the growth of vaping in the first place). He’ll hand over the reins to someone else next month. The tobacco industry in particular will be keen to see whether his successor will carry on with his initiatives or concentrate on other things

• US e-tailing behemoth Amazon shook up the retail sector (Monday) when it announced that is planning to launch urban grocery stores that will stock beauty products (high margin) alongside food (lower margin). Initial details about these stores suggests that they will be smaller than many traditional supermarkets but bigger than many convenience stores, which could mean that they will be trampling on the turf of the likes of Kroger, Walmart and Target.  At the moment, it’s not clear whether the new format will have the Amazon brand name, although it is expected to be distinct from Whole Foods Market, which it bought two years ago. Kroger shares fell (Friday) on news that its revenues and profits were hit by its investment in online operations, so it seems that the benefits are yet to filter through
• Back on the UK high street, though, Greggs’s fortunes were a bright spot (Friday) but otherwise things stayed gloomy with consumers tightening their collective belts (Tuesday) in the face of Brexit. There were more restaurant closures (Tuesday) and fashion retailers continued to grab the headlines with Ted Baker’s founder resigning (Tuesday), Superdry cutting staff at its Cheltenham HQ (Wednesday), Primark telling 200 staff to move to Dublin or face redundancy (Friday), Quiz’s profit warning (Friday) and LK Bennett calling in the administrators (Friday). Newsflow for department stores wasn’t exactly uplifting either as John Lewis cut the staff bonus pool to its lowest level in 65 years (Friday) and Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley continued to turn the screws on the ailing Debenhams (Friday) only days after Debenhams announced a profit warning (Wednesday).

My favourite “alternative” story of the week was good news for all those would-be ninjas out there in VR ninja dojo: battle as a shadow warrior at new virtual reality world in Tokyo (SoraNews24, Oona McGee https://tinyurl.com/y39g9xdv). Mind you, this gift idea was also pretty bizarre: McDonald’s cheeseburger scented candle has fans’ mouths watering and lasts ages (The Mirror, Zahra Mulroy https://tinyurl.com/y3vsrejn). I’m not a fan of this myself, but I’m sure there will be many who will disagree with me!

Have a fun weekend!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• Trump suggested an extension to the US-China trade truce deadline due at the end of this week (Monday) which got markets excited, but then he tried to keep everyone on their toes by saying that a deal “might not happen” (Tuesday). Still, he failed to reach an agreement with Kim Jong Un in the Vietnam summit (Thursday) while his ex-lawyer was doing a hatchet job on his character at a Congressional hearing. Despite all this, the US economy is growing well (Friday) albeit at a slower rate
• British PM Theresa May gave in to pressure and said that Brexit could be put on hold (Wednesday) but all this Brexit uncertainty continues to hit the housing market (Friday) and individual estate agents
• The tension continued between Pakistan and India (Thursday) which escalated to an aerial incursion that ended in the capture of an Indian pilot. Tensions will be diffused as Pakistan is to return him unharmed. In the meantime, India’s GDP growth rate slowed to its lowest rate in five quarters (Friday), although it’s still good compared to many other countries! Even so, these are testing times for PM Modi as he heads into elections shortly

• Microsoft announced its new Augmented Reality glasses (Monday), the HoloLens 2 headset, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Microsoft is aiming this creation at corporate and commercial consumers and it combines physical and digital worlds through its transparent visor. It will be commercially available later this year for $3,500 and comes with a new optical system which more than doubles the field of view versus the older version, is less bulky and has faster chips
• Huawei announced a new bendy phone (Monday), called the Mate X, that has impressive tech and is thinner than Samsung’s recently announced Galaxy Fold. However, it’s pretty pricey at $2,600 for a handset which I suppose makes Samsung’s Galaxy Fold look like a positive bargain in comparison at a “mere” $1,980 ????
• China’s Xiaomi announced it would be tripling the number of its shops in Europe (Wednesday) within this year. It will be interesting to see if this company can make meaningful inroads into this highly competitive mobile phone market

• M&S confirmed it was in talks with Ocado (Wednesday) about a joint venture and then announced more details about the deal (Thursday) which many investors saw as being rather expensive. I think that M&S is just paying the price for jumping at a very late stage onto the e-commerce bandwagon – but Waitrose is going to suffer as things stand as its own offering is clunky and has a narrow product offering in comparison. Unless it puts a Plan B in place it will be left wanting when Ocado “abandons” it in September 2020
• British chocolatier Hotel Chocolat continues to go from strength to strength (Wednesday) and is salivating (metaphorically, obviously) at the thought of snapping up prime retail space while others have problems
• German e-tailer Zalando surprised everyone by announcing a strong recovery in fortunes (Friday)and wants to both deepen and broaden its current relationships with fashion brands to keep the party going
• Gap delighted investors by announcing it would spinoff Old Navy into a separate entity (Friday) meaning that both sides could focus on their core offerings and allow investors more specific exposure to different customer avatars
• Ted Baker disappointed investors as it announced a profit warning (Thursday) only one month after it said officially that everything was going OK. The company announced a £10m shortfall in profits due to a £5m write-down of unsold stock, a £2.5m loss on forex and £2.5m of product costs following a systems upgrade

• Spotify, which rolled out its service in India (Thursday) although Warner Music Group is proving to be a pain (Tuesday). This market clearly has massive potential!
• Lego managed to unveil strong sales and profits (Thursday), thus bucking the trend of the wider toymaking industry. It did particularly well from Harry Potter and Star Wars-themed products but the struggle will continue with prising kids away from digital devices
• Tesla announced a $35,000 Model 3 (Friday), thus fulfilling a promise it made back in 2016 to make its car more accessible by the masses. The downside for employees is that he’s going to sack a boatload of them because he is going to push all sales online
• It was a BAD week for James Bond’s fave car manufacturer as Aston Martin announced a greater than expected loss (Friday) which left investors both shaken AND stirred. This was mainly put down to a £136m bill for taking the company to market! Brexit is the next kick in the soft bits so there’s a lot of hope riding on Aston’s DBX SUV, which is due to go into full production next year

Two stories made me laugh this week: Theresa May and Giuseppe Conte practice pool (BBC https://tinyurl.com/y5b4fp23) which has the air of one of those JOE viral videos (but it’s real!) and Google Maps users spot something very rude in background of Street View shot (The Mirror, Zoe Forsey https://tinyurl.com/y4otob32) which is admirable because of the quick-thinking of the protagonist!

Have a fun weekend!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• Investors are starting to get quite excited by the prospect of seeing light at the end of the tunnel for the ongoing US-China trade war as Trump made vague noises about being a bit more flexible on the March 1st deadline (Wednesday) and softened his administration’s hardline stance on Huawei on a recent tweet (Friday). Still, the world’s #1 shipping container company Maersk said that even if the US and China came to an agreement the trade war still wouldn’t end because talks about reforming current agreements with Europe would be next on the agenda (Friday). I would have thought that American negotiators will be in the driving seat in European talks because the Continent will be up to its eyes in Brexit, elections and a general economic slowdown. Funnily enough, although German exports are down (Friday), the German trade surplus remains the biggest in the world (Wednesday), making it a ripe target for Trump to attack when he gets around to it
• Given that tech stocks seem to be in recovery since the beginning of this year, they are starting to crawl back out of the woodwork and dust off previously shelved flotation plans after a nightmare time in the final quarter of 2018. Ride-sharing app Lyft looks like it will float by the end of March (Thursday) and Pinterest could do the same in June (Friday)

• Honda announced plans to shut its Swindon plant (Tuesday) when the current production run finishes in 2021 putting 3,500 of Honda jobs at risk – but Honda repercussions will be felt outside the company as well (Thursday) as many businesses will have to adapt to this development or experience the consequences
• Brexit is clearly a factor in Honda’s exit, but the whole industry faces problems of tightening emissions regulations (Thursday) and slowing sales – even in the US (Tuesday) where the economy is looking pretty robust at the moment, all things considered

• So UK consumers are earning more money (Monday) in a tight labour market (Wednesday) and are showing some nerves (Tuesday) but not particularly changing their spending habits (Tuesday) – although they seem to be channeling at least some of it into buying vegan sausage rolls at Greggs that have been flying off the shelves (Wednesday)
• In retailer news, the Competition and Markets Authority pretty much scuppered the chances of the Sainsbury’s and Asda merger (Thursday) with their preliminary findings – but a final report is not due until April 30th. Stores who were hoping to pick up some bargains among the Asda and Sainsbury’s cast-offs will no doubt be disappointed.  In the meantime, current Asda owner Walmart unveiled a strong performance (Wednesday) thanks to brisk sales over the holiday period

• Samsung unveiled a bendy phone (Thursday) called the Galaxy Fold. It’s chunky and extremely expensive (around $1,980) but could be the start of a bendy revolution that could boost handset sales if they get the price right
• Apple is working with Goldman Sachs to launch a credit card (Friday). This could boost Apple’s revenues and increase usage of its Wallet function and give Goldman access to younger and more tech-savvy customers whilst also boosting its credentials in retail banking
• Johnson & Johnson received subpoenas from the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (Friday) who are investigating allegations of asbestos contamination in its baby powder products. If they are found to have done anything wrong, things could get very nasty (and very expensive) indeed. Think tobacco litigation – but this time for talcum powder

My favourite “alternative” story of this week was Vietnamese hairdresser giving out Trump and Kim cuts (Sky News, Emily Mee https://tinyurl.com/yxz3p53b). They are strong looks, it has to be said…

Have a fun weekend!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• The latest round of US-China trade talks were held in Beijing this week (Tuesday) and investors got increasingly excited when Trump made positive noises (Wednesday) and then even more excited when Xi himself got involved unexpectedly (Thursday). A lot of politicians, industries and companies will be praying for further progress to end the impasse that has dragged on since last summer
• Eurostat figures showed a fragile Europe with Germany only just avoiding recession (Friday) and Italy not being so fortunate. UK inflation fell below the Bank of England’s 2% target (Thursday) which should help consumers feel more flush given that wages continue to rise
• World trading activity continues to be sluggish (Wednesday) as the Baltic Dry Index hit new lows but on the other hand China announced surprisingly strong export numbers (Thursday) although many think that this was at least partly due to companies rushing to put their order through before the current trade truce deadline
• In commodities news, copper prices seem to be turning a corner (Tuesday) on stronger China demand and we see that Asian battery makers are continuing to seek out more stable cobalt supplies (Tuesday) given DRC’s difficulties

• Sony changed the chief of its Sony Interactive Entertainment division (Wednesday) as the company heads into the maelstrom that always happens in the lead-up to the introduction of the next generation of consoles. PS4 won the battle in the latest generation, but can Microsoft stage a comeback with its next offering?
• Electronic Arts announced a successful launch of its Fortnite rival, Apex Legends (Tuesday) which prompted a lot of buying activity in the shares but then it wasn’t all sunshine and unicorns for game developers as Activision Blizzard announced that it was cutting 8% of its workforce (Wednesday) in an attempt to change strategic course given changing gamer behaviour

• US consumer activity slowed down considerably (Friday) which could mean that fourth quarter US GDP figures will be weaker than many people expect
• Patisserie Valerie found a buyer (Friday) but lost Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley in the bidding process (Monday) as he had put in a cheeky bid. Frozen food supremo Iceland said it was ready to buy outlets (Tuesday) that would come on sale post a successful Sainsbury’s/Asda deal – but there will be competition from the likes of B&M, Home Bargains and Irish-owned toy chain Smyths, who are also on the lookout for expanding their footprint

• Morgan Stanley bought Solium Capital (Tuesday) which could give it more access to start-ups and rich millennials, slotting in nicely beside its existing stock management business that is more Fortune 500/senior exec-focused. The deal is expected to complete by June 30th
• Alibaba’s financial affiliate – and the world’s biggest start-up – Ant Financial bought British company WorldFirst for $700m (Friday) in its first ever UK acquisition as the company tries to expand outside its own domestic market
• JP Morgan announced the creation of its own cryptocurrency (Friday). Chairman and chief exec Jamie Dimon is a vocal critic of bitcoin but a fan of the blockchain technology behind it. Santander and HSBC are also experimenting with doing something similar…

My favourite “alternative” story of this week was ‘Tinder for cows’ matches livestock in the mood for love (Reuters, Matthew Stock https://tinyurl.com/yxgaetdf). What a great idea!

Have a fun weekend!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• Nissan decided NOT to make the new X-Trail in Sunderland (Monday) due to Brexit uncertainty, slowing car sales generally in Europe and the fact that the X-trail that was GOING to be built in Sunderland would have been the diesel version – and diesel sales are going down the toilet. Another reason is that Japan recently signed a trade deal with the EU that means that X-Trails exported from Japan to Europe would eventually attract no tax, whereas exporting them from the UK to Europe would.
• It was interesting to see that SUV/small truck sales were strong in the US for Ford (Monday) and General Motors (Thursday) while both US giants continue to struggle with their overseas businesses. However, figures suggest that US car dealerships are long of inventory with the prospect of declining sales ahead of them (Tuesday) so even though things are going well in the US economy at the moment, it won’t necessarily be all plain-sailing
• Tesla announced the purchase of Californian battery technology company Maxwell Technologies (Tuesday), which should strengthen its current capabilities, and then the company announced a price cut for its Model 3 (Thursday) to partly mitigate the phasing out of a tax credit that’s currently in place for buying electric vehicles.

• It looks like there are going to be some big changes among terrestrial broadcasters what with a big BBC/Discovery/UKTV/ITV deal in the offing (Friday) where it looks like there will be a carve-up of channels involving the BBC taking control of up to seven UKTV channels, whilst Discovery will get UKTV’s lifestyle channels and all of the BBC’s natural history content and potentially a venture with ITV as a “Best of British” rival streaming service to the likes of Netflix and Amazon. Details are yet to be finalised although it feels like something big is about to happen. Netflix is rumoured to be looking at focusing on more local content in the UK (Tuesday), which will up the ante a bit for the incumbent terrestrial broadcasters as it has a lot of money that it could splurge and then Disney unveiled quarterly results (Wednesday) along with some details on its forthcoming video-streaming plans after last year’s very high profile $71bn deal to acquire major assets of 21st Century Fox
• Some new avenues for potential revenue generation were opened up what with the popularity of 10-minute virtual DJ Marshmello gig that happened in Fortnite over the weekend (Tuesday) where developers switched off guns so players within the game could “watch” the concert at Pleasant Park and Spotify bought into podcasting (Thursday) – which is a nice move considering that people who listen to podcasts tend to use Spotify for longer, which gives more potential for ad revenues (for those on a free subscription) and more appealing proprietary content to keep existing members happy and attract new ones
• In gaming, traditional developers are facing increasing competition from the popularity of online games such as Fortnite (Thursday) which led to downbeat forecasts and steep resulting falls in the share prices of companies such as Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft. Video chat app Houseparty is trying to avoid the ad-revenue model (Wednesday) favoured by companies like Facebook by generating revenues from paid-for content and then there were some doubts expressed over game console sales for Sony (Tuesday) and Nintendo (Monday)
• Traditional advertisers continue to have a tough time as Publicis announced slowing sales (Friday) while the likes of Google (Tuesday), Twitter (Friday) and even Snap (Wednesday) experienced continued benefits from the ongoing migration of ad spend to digital

• Travel operators Tui and Thomas Cook announced contrasting fortunes (Friday) with Thomas Cook’s share price flying after it announced it was selling off its airline and Tui announcing a shock profit warning that sent its shares down by 19%. Superdry failed to get out of its current rut by announcing “subdued trading” (Friday) while Ladbrokes and estate agents announced more job losses to come (Wednesday) because of the clampdown on FOBTs and a slowing economy respectively
• Ikea continues to innovate (Monday) as it experiments with the idea of renting its furniture to you. The Swedish giant is a very interesting place to be at the moment!

• …as the interest rate stayed unchanged (Friday), with the Bank of England downgrading growth forecasts
• There was bad news for the engine of the economy as the services sector almost ground to a halt in January (Wednesday), which is a problem given that the services sector accounts for almost 80% of our GDP

My favourite “alternative” stories this week were about the special dog-dryer in Bizarre device claims to dry your dog in minutes – here’s where you can buy it (The Mirror, Courtney Pochin https://tinyurl.com/ya4b7b5h) as well as the rather impressive woman behind Mum spends £10,000 converting helicopter into home cinema (Metro, Richard Hartley-Parkinson https://tinyurl.com/y79tm86g).

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• US/China trade talks took place in Washington this week (Tuesday) despite Huawei facing a ton of charges – and they seemed to go well as Trump hinted at subsequent talks with Xi (Friday) without revealing too many details
• However, Eurozone growth is slowing to a standstill (Friday) while Italy enters a technical recession (Friday) and German business confidence took a big hit (Tuesday). South Korean exports also fell off a cliff (Tuesday), raising concerns that the China slowdown is spreading around the region
• US rates were kept on hold (Thursday) amidst growing concerns about a global economic slowdown

• US consumers could be in for a nice windfall (Monday) as many didn’t revise their tax codes when Trump changed the rules but UK consumers remain cautious (Monday) to the extent that they even reduced spending on credit (Thursday) 
• Amazon announced strong results (Friday) although they were more downbeat about the immediate future given restrictions in India and another round of spending on infrastructure
• …and in the UK, Tesco announced job cuts (Monday) while M&S and Ocado entered into talks (Monday, Tuesday) although no-one knows any more details on precisely what sort of deal might be done

• Apple announced poor results (Wednesday), but on the flipside it’s making advances in game streaming (Tuesday) – where it aims to become “the Netflix for games” – as well as its healthcare business (Wednesday) in a new venture with US insurer Aetna for an app called Attain. Apple’s contractors continue to look outside China to increase production and reduce the current supply chain imbalance (Monday)
• Nvidia suffered from a slowdown in its China business (Tuesday) amongst other things while Samsung announced weak earnings (Friday) and a downbeat assessment of prospects for the first half – although they expect things to turn up in the second half of the year on rising chip prices and new product launches

• There was an interesting update on VW’s electric vehicle platform (Thursday) which may prove to be vital to its future while Ford continues to have problems in China (Thursday)
• It was a mixed week for Tesla because it announced good results (Thursday) on the one hand, but then it looks like its high profile Saudi Arabian backer is distancing itself (Tuesday) from the company. Tesla also lost its CFO.

My favourite “alternative” stories this week were Man creates gorgeous sculptures out of Ferrero Rocher wrappers (Metro, Hattie Gladwell https://tinyurl.com/ya65y3pf) and A Twitter user cleverly turned their AirPods into earings so they’d never lose them (Insider, Daniel Boan https://tinyurl.com/yaa9recf) because the people in these articles are so darn clever!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• The IMF warned of a global economic slowdown (Tuesday) citing Brexit, escalating US-China trade tensions and a Chinese slowdown as being the three main risk “triggers”
• China’s economic growth rate is officially slowing down (Tuesday)
• The US government shutdown drags on but pawnbrokers and consumer loan providers are benefiting (Monday)
• Even though the UK is heading towards the Brexit unknown, pay and employment both rose (Wednesday)

• The week started off with Huawei getting downbeat about its future (Monday) given the constant stream of criticisms being leveled at it around the world. Jobs and forecasts are looking vulnerable. The week ended with China banning Microsoft’s Bing search engine (Friday)
• Google got fined €50m for breaching GDPR (Tuesday)
• There were rumours that Apple’s main contractor Foxconn is looking at shifting more iPhone assembly to India (Wednesday), which could potentially be a game-changer in my opinion

• Big landlord British Land decided to consolidate its offices division and its retail, leisure and residential division (Tuesday) in order to focus on mixed-use “campuses” that combine shops, homes and office space. I personally believe that this will be the way forward otherwise our retail “zones” will become ghost towns if we’re not careful as the migration to online continues. However, it’s important to be mindful that figures used to show consumer behaviour have their strengths and weaknesses (Wednesday) although the trend at the moment appears to be one of overall weakness as retail jobs continue to get cut (Thursday)
• Patisserie Valerie went bust (Wednesday) although a potential bidder emerged (Thursday) and – talking of potential bidders, it turns out that Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley is considering the purchase of HMV (Monday)
• Willam Hill announced major closures (Tuesday)…
• …but there was good news for high street winners Mountain Warehouse (Tuesday) and Joules (Thursday) who reported strong sales

• Dyson announced that it is moving its HQ to Singapore (Wednesday). Everyone’s getting shirty about it given that Sir James Dyson appears to be saying one thing (Brexit, yay!) and then doing another (Brexit, nay!) but I think this will all blow over because there’s nothing anyone can do about it. As long as the company does well, I think the memory of this will fade, but it might come back to haunt him further down the line. At the end of the day, he’s moving the business closer to where the juiciest growth markets are
• Metro announced that it had mis-classified its property assets (Thursday) which resulted in a massive sell-off of the shares. This could become a much bigger problem if other banks have been making the same mistake, but there’s no word on that at the moment
• Santander announced that it would be cutting 20% of its UK branches (Thursday) as the whole sector continues to evolve in the digital age

My favourite “alternative” stories this week were Mum throws shoe at teen from huge distance – but can’t believe what happens next (The Mirror, Courtney Pochin https://tinyurl.com/ybgmte23) which made me laugh a lot and then Incredible video shows teenager skating down the hill through French Alps at 68mph (Daily Motion, https://tinyurl.com/y93m2juc) because it was so darn impressive!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. You will need a FULL SUBSCRIPTION to be able to click through all the links which take you to the relevant articles.

• The week started off with the prospect of Parliament voting on May’s Brexit deal (Monday), but it failed spectacularly (Wednesday). Germany voiced concerns about the impasse (Friday) but didn’t do anything else concrete
• There were concerns of economic slowdown in China and Europe (Tuesday) as both Chinese exports and Eurozone industrial production weakened and Germany narrowly avoided falling into recession (Wednesday)

• India overtook Germany to become world’s fourth biggest car market (Monday) with some predicting it’ll get Japan’s #3 spot by 2021 but overall car sales continue to trend down in China and Europe (Thursday). Continental, the world’s #2 car parts and tyre maker confirmed the downtrend (Tuesday)
• Meanwhile, Ford announced an alliance with Volkswagen (Wednesday) to share resources on autonomous vehicles, mobility services and electric vehicles. This alliance will be the largest of its kind in the industry.
• Lotus is to start car production in China (Friday) and Volvo invested in a high-power wireless charger maker (Wednesday)

• India decided to protect its small retailers against the foreign giants (Wednesday) who have, until now been using loopholes to undercut the locals
• Meanwhile, in the UK, retailer results continued to flood in. Winners included JD Sports (Tuesday), Boohoo.com and Games Workshop (Wednesday), the Works and Cineworld (Thursday) and Primark (Friday). Losers included Revolution Bars (Tuesday), Paperchase (Wednesday– they called in KPMG for survival advice), Patisserie Valerie (Thursday – turns out they were cooking the books more than was first thought) Clarks (Thursday– who are shutting down UK production) and N Brown (Friday). There were rumours that Debenhams was going to close a lot of its stores (Monday) but M&S released a list of what it was actually going to close down (Wednesday) 

• Germany decided to believe the negative hype over Huawei (Friday) and is looking to shut them out of 5G development
• Apple chip supplier TSMC guided down expectations of first quarter revenues (Friday) as smartphone sales continue to slow down
• Pokemon Go developer Niantic won more chunky investment (Thursday) ahead of the much-anticipated release of an AR Harry Potter game later this year. It’ll be investing it in the usual things like further development – but it will also be using the money to develop a platform that other developers will be able to use
• Netflix announced subscription price rises (Wednesday) as well as better-than-expected subscriber growth (Friday) but it seems that investors are turning their attention to revenues and profits as the company continues to spend huge amounts of money on content

My favourite “alternative” story this week wasn’t something particularly amusing (as it normally is), but something that could/should be done in this country as I’m sure there’s a market for it ???? in All the rage: Beijingers vent their stress in ‘anger room’ (Reuters, https://tinyurl.com/y74swo5t). This could be the Next Big Thing after escape rooms!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• The week kicked off with hopes for the first round of US-China trade talks since the G20 truce (Monday) and ended with some progress and the promise of more at a higher level (Thursday)
• There was some good news for Europe as the number of jobless in the Eurozone fell below 8% (Thursday) for the first time in ten years
• French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to push forth with his reform programme (Thursday) despite the continued protests of the gilets jaunes

• Apple had some newsflow this week what with its decision to let iTunes users access content via non-Apple devices (Tuesday), its encouragement of trade-in to boost device sales (Wednesday) and the production cut to its iPhones (Thursday)
• Samsung was one of Apple’s “chosen ones” for TV, but painted a downbeat picture for profits (Tuesday)
• Tencent’s gaming capabilities continue to be hobbled (Friday) by the decision by Chinese authorities not to license their games as yet
• SoftBank decided “only” to invest $2bn in WeWork rather than the expected $16bn (Tuesday) as the investments in their tech-focused Vision Fund took a hammering, prompting caution

• Car sales in China fell for the first time in 20 years (Thursday) and UK car sales experienced their steepest fall in ten years (Tuesday)
• Jaguar Land Rover and Ford both announced job losses (Friday) as JLR continues to suffer from being smaller than its competitors and overexposed to China and diesel-powered vehicles whilst Ford just decided to cut costs in its loss-making European operations
• Fiat Chrysler got fined $800m (Friday) as part of the whole emissions scandal thing, although it admitted no wrongdoing as part of the deal. Criminal investigations are still ongoing, so it’s not all over yet
• Elon Musk heralded the beginning of the construction of his China factory (Tuesday), saying that it would begin production within the year (yeah right – when has he hit his deadlines?!?). The pressure’s on as everyone and their dog is producing viable alternative electric vehicles

• Tesco won the battle of the big grocers (Friday), although Aldi announced its best ever festive season (Tuesday) and Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose had rather more downbeat fortunes (Wednesday)
• Non-food: saw strong performances for Joules (Wednesday) and Dunelm (Tuesday)
• Restaurants and bars saw brisk trading with Mitchells & Butler being the overall winner (Friday)
• Department stores saw mixed trading with Macy’s disappointing in the US (Friday), Selfridges and John Lewis doing well in the UK (Wednesday) – although the parent company of the latter was rather downbeat on its future prospects, mooting the possibility of zero bonuses (Friday) – and continued disastrous performance of Debenhams who had their chairman and chief exec ousted from the board (Friday)

I have to admit that, this week, my favourite “alternative” stories were both from Thursday. Apologies but I found Newsreader mocked for wearing ‘p3nis jacket’ on TV – people ‘can’t unsee it’ (The Mirror, Robyn Darbyshire https://tinyurl.com/yddheyta) hilarious, but I thought I’d balance this out with the altogether much cuter Japanese snow monkeys find novel way to travel during winter (SoraNews24, Oona McGee https://tinyurl.com/yatmwn85). Ahhhhhh.

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• In the US: the Federal Reserve announced a 0.25% increase in interest rates to a new range of 2.25-2.5% (Thursday), despite increasing pressure from President Trump not to raise them
• In Europe: Italy and the EU came to a compromise about the contentious deficit bit of Italy’s proposed budget (Thursday) although I suspect this is just kicking the can down the road to avoid any mess before next year’s EU parliament elections. Italy will now have a budget deficit of 2.04% of GDP versus the proposed level of 2.4% and will achieve this by delaying some of its spending plans, including the introduction of a basic income programme
• In the UK: Interest rates remained unchanged (Friday)at 0.75% as the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to do so. Basically, the Bank of England will wait and see how the Brexit thing unfolds. If it is anything less than smooth, they probably won’t be raising rates for a while by the sounds of it. Re Brexit, we are left with May’s deal, no deal, Norway Plus/full customs union membership or a second referendum (Friday)
• There was continued weakness for the oil price, which was mainly put down to booming shale oil production in the US (Wednesday). The Brent crude price has fallen by a third since it reached its highest level for four years in October and forecasts from the US Energy Information Administration show that production is going to continue to increase. It’s looking like the OPEC cuts won’t be enough to offset a potential oil glut going into next year

• Overseas landlords are abandoning the UK, according to the latest stats from Hamptons International (Monday) on a combination of lower expectations of house price growth, a tougher tax regime and the impact of expected Brexit-fuelled sterling weakness on rental returns
• The UK property market will stagnate in 2019 as house sales fall (Tuesday), according to the latest figures from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) due to Brexit uncertainty and affordability constraints. The RICS report observed that “House prices are now a greater multiple of earnings than at any point since records began. Such high house prices are shutting more and more people from accessing the market” and it is worth noting that there is still a shortage of supply and fewer forced sellers in the market meaning that “many vendors will be under no real pressure to sell, meaning they can choose to avoid listing their property at a time when the market is weakening”

• There was a lot of doom and gloom around for the retailer naysayers what with the latest forecasts by retail analysis firm Springboard saying that footfall is expected to drop by 3% this week (Monday) as people are reining back on spending this Christmas both online and offline. Asos had a shocker (Tuesday) as it bore the brunt of a disastrous November. Given that Asos is an online-only retailer investors took its travails to be a sign that offline weakness is leaching into online retailers. Having said that, some believe that this sales shocker was more to do with a failed Black Friday campaign, with the implication being that it could be a one-off and Asos-specific issue rather than something more widespread
• On the positive side of things, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that total retail sales volumes were up by 3.8% versus November last year (Friday) – which was way above forecasts with rising pay, falling inflation and robust consumer confidence (presumably in personal finances rather than anything else) thought to be behind the unexpected surprise. There are still some strong performances from some bar/restaurant operators (Monday), with Loungers even eyeing a stock market flotation (Friday). Even John Lewis surprised on the upside this week (Wednesday)

• The world’s #1 brewer AB In Bev is getting together with Canadian marijuana company Tilray to research cannabis-infused drinks (Thursday). The two companies will invest $50m each in researching how to get such drinks to market, taking into account factors like flavouring and the length of the high. I think this is going to be an AREA with BIG potential
• Marlboro-maker Altria decided to buy hefty stake in Juul for a hefty sum (Thursday)
• GSK did a deal with Pfizer that will split its business into two (Thursday) with a view to demerging its consumer health business within the next three years
• South Africa’s Naspers decided to invest $660m into Indian food-delivery company Swiggy (Friday) in a super-hot market

Given that this is the last Watson’s Daily before 2019 (and the nearest one to Christmas), I thought I’d leave you with an unashamedly festive collection of my favourite “alternative” stories for this week. Making a dog’s dinner of it! Hilarious snaps show playful pooches pulling some VERY funny faces as they try to catch flying treats in new calendar snaps (Daily Mail, Dianne Apen-Sadler https://tinyurl.com/y7w7uf7v) and People can’t get enough of this family’s hilarious “real life” Christmas cards (bestlifeonline.com, Diana Bruk https://tinyurl.com/y9ktmssp) made me laugh a lot and I think that Mouth-watering photos show what different holiday feasts look like around the world (Insider, Rachel Askinasi https://tinyurl.com/y72k2uoc) is quite educational!

I hope you have a brilliant Christmas and a fantastic New Year! See you again on January 7th for Watson’s Daily. The first edition of Watson’s Weekly will be on January 11th.

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• In the UK: It all kicked off with Theresa May canning the Commons vote on Brexit (Tuesday), then she survived a vote of no confidence, following which she jetted off to Europe to see whether she could get a better deal (unlikely)
• In France: France’s central bank cut growth forecasts (Tuesday) to take into account the impact of the gilets jaunes protests and President Macron pledged tax cuts and a rise in the minimum wage (Tuesday) to placate his critics
• In Italy: the government made conciliatory noises about altering its budget plans (Thursday) in order to coincide with EU guidelines, but the proposals are short on detail and don’t go far enough (Friday)
• Re US-China trade talks: China seemed to show goodwill by cutting import taxes on American vehicles (Wednesday) and the market reacted positively (Thursday)

• Footfall at UK retailers is expected to drop this Christmas period (Monday) and the grocery market is slowing down (Wednesday). Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley painted a very stark picture of the current retail environment (Friday) and this seems to be having a negative impact on retail property values generally (Wednesday). On the other hand, wages rose by their fastest pace in a decade (Wednesday)
• In terms of the retailers themselves, Superdry’s profit warning put more pressure on management (Thursday) as co-founder Julian Dunkerton makes no bones about wanting to return to sort the mess out. Pizza Express got downgraded by Moody’s (Monday) but then, on the other hand, tenpin bowling chain Hollywood Bowl unveiled strong figures (Monday), showing that consumers are still spending money out there somewhere!

• Hyundai committed to fuel cell cars (Wednesday)
• China car sales had their steepest monthly fall in 6 years (Wednesday). China is the world’s biggest car market and the fact that it is heading for its first annual decline in sales for 30 years is potentially a worrying sign
• The EU reversed a decision that relaxed diesel emissions two years ago (Friday), which means that car manufacturers will face more onerous requirements to produce cleaner vehicles. More potential expense following compliance with WLTP

• …what with fears that Interserve was going to become the next Carillion (Tuesday)
• …but then again Serco knocked it out of the park on strong results (Friday), so it’s not all disaster!

I must be going soft, but here was my favourite story of the week: Irish dancing baby could give Michael Flatley a run for his money (The Mirror, Lisa Trainer https://tinyurl.com/y7fds5nx).

Have a great weekend!

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• In France, President Macron had to address the problem of his proposed fuel tax rises – which was the root problem of the weekend riots in Paris – as he pondered the aftermath (Monday) which led to a delay in the proposed rollout (Wednesday) that then turned into a bigger climbdown (Thursday). This is going to make further tricky reforms even harder to implement now the French people have successfully found his pain threshold
• OPEC started its meetings in Vienna this Thursday to discuss the oil price and whether to cut production to stem its slide. Although many observers had assumed that a production cut was pretty much a done deal, it doesn’t quite sound like that (Friday) as OPEC members are trying to balance their own interests with those of Trump, who continued to push for keeping production levels unchanged. Mind you, given that the US is now the world’s biggest oil producer it seems that its interests in keeping a reasonably buoyant oil price will soon outweigh the preference for lower oil prices (Monday)
• The week started with renewed hopes for US-China trade relations as they agreed a 90-day truce (Monday) but the markets wobbled on Trump saying he was a tariffs man (Wednesday) before they wobbled again on Chinese anger at the US’s actions re arresting Huawei’s CFO (Friday)

• The week started with some positive news about China reducing and/or doing away with the 40% car import tariffs (Monday), although there were subsequent wobbles about how robust this would be (Wednesday – because Trump tweeted that he was a “tariff man” and Friday – because of Chinese anger at the arrest of Huawei’s CFO)
• Alphabet’s Waymo announced a “driverless” taxi service called Waymo One in Arizona that had paying passengers (Thursday). It’s very restricted at the moment both in terms of the passengers and actual geographical area, but it’s a step in the right direction for the development of driverless cars.
• There was another exciting development this time in the world of driverless electric trucks as Swedish autonomous vehicle start-up Einride and German logistics group DB Schenker  announced their T-pod truck (Monday) that would shortly be carrying freight on public roads. A remote operator can control up to ten trucks at once from a hundred miles away to take over when needed. Currently, the T-Pod is only allowed on 100 miles of public road and can only go for six miles but again, like the Waymo thing above, it’s a step in the right direction
• The week ended on a cautionary note as a study by PA Consulting showed that, if things carry on the way they are now, 8 out of 13 of Europe’s major car companies could face fines of up to 20% of their profits (Friday) because they would fail to hit new limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

• Department store spending fell for the 13th consecutive month (Wednesday) according to the latest Barclaycard figures. This will presumably give Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley an excuse (if he ever needed one) to shut down more House of Fraser stores
• Ted Baker suffered PR problems due to employees rebelling against a culture of “forced hugging” (Tuesday), so the company got the lawyers in to investigate
• Thomas Cook had a right rollercoaster of a ride as concerns increased about its debt (Tuesday, Wednesday) but were then batted away (Thursday)
• Travis Perkins decided to mull over a potential sale of its Wickes DIY business (Wednesday) so that it can focus more on the more profitable trade business

• There was a ton of drama this week because the CFO (and daughter of the founder) of Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei was arrested (Thursday) as part of a criminal investigation related to alleged attempts by Huawei to sell US-made equipment to Iran, flouting sanctions against the country. China wasn’t best pleased (Friday) and so markets went weaker (Friday)

My favourite stories this week were Bus driver can lick his own forehead with his tongue in unusual trick (The Mirror, Laura Forsyth https://tinyurl.com/ya43nwyz) and Sumo wrestler goes viral with video of him signing autographs (Nextshark, Carl Samson https://tinyurl.com/y72swrn4), although I think the sumo wrestler just edges it for me!

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• Bitcoin started the week licking its wounds after its worst week of trading in five years last week (Monday), but had a decent rebound (Thursday) on reports that the Nasdaq is going to start trading bitcoin derivatives, thus giving the cryptocurrency more legitimacy

• …what with European carmaker share prices falling on the back of Trump threats (Wednesday) of tariff increases. The official line from the White House is that no additional levies will be imposed while it is conducting negotiations with the EU and Japan, but Trump has often threatened a tax on foreign car imports. Currently, US cars shipped to the EU face way higher taxes than European cars being shipped to the US
• GM announced factory closures and the culling of 14,700 jobs (Tuesday) as part of company efforts to futureproof itself against expected changes in ownership trends (fewer people will own their cars) and vehicle electrification. Trump didn’t like this, but I’m not sure whether he can do much about it
• Tesla had a shocker as its sales in China fell by 70% last month (Wednesday). Tesla imports all the cars it sells in China and the government imposed a hefty 40% tax on car imports coming from the US in response to Trump’s tariffs going the other way. No wonder it recently lowered its prices on the Model S and Model X to take the hit!

• The week kicked off with disappointing early data from Black Friday for the UK high street (Monday), but John Lewis turned out to be a winner (Wednesday) as it clocked up its biggest week ever as shoppers bagged deals on gadgets, beauty products, clothing and beds
• Ikea reported a hefty 40% fall in profits (Thursday) due to costs related to changing its business model from being a big out-of-town retailer to one with a better online and town centre presence. Profits are expected to be depressed for the next three years as the meatball and furniture retailer funds this transition from its own pocket rather than hiking prices and making its customers pay
• The Restaurant Group breathed a sigh of relief as the Wagamama acquisition was approved (Thursday), although 40% of investors voted against it mainly because they thought it was too expensive and don’t like the way the acquisition is going to be funded (a deeply discounted rights issue)
• A takeover bid for shopping centre landlord Intu fell though, sending shares down by 41% (Friday) as investors are getting increasingly nervous about the fragile nature of the UK high street at the moment. I suspect we’ll see more retailers go to the wall and falling rents

• Media giant WPP announced that it was merging two of its companies to form Wunderman Thompson (Tuesday) as the world of advertising reacts to the continued success of Facebook and Google and digital advertising. Digital is now accounts for around 60% of all advertising investment and all net UK advertising growth (Thursday)
• Netflix announced that it is going to increase the amount of European shows it produces by a third next year (Thursday) as it continues to put pressure on traditional broadcasters. AT&T announced plans to capitalise on its acquisition of Time Warner by offering three versions of its new streaming video service (Friday) from the fourth quarter of 2019 that will have original movies and TV series from Warner Bros, Turner and HBO. WarnerMedia (as TimeWarner is now known) plans an entry-level service focusing on movies, a second tier with original programming and more films and a third tier with all of the above plus classic films, comedy and children’s programming. The world of streaming continues to evolve!

I have to say that I am still reeling from watching the video in Hang glider clings on for his life after pilot fails to attach safety harness (Sky News, https://tinyurl.com/y7c4b5kx). If you haven’t seen this yet, be prepared to be shocked! After things calmed down, the guy that cheated death said  “I will go hang gliding again as I did not enjoy my first flight”. ?!?

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• Apple – and anyone associated with it – suffered this week from fears of peak iPhone (Monday). Given that Apple no longer gives details of unit sales, investors will focus on its suppliers for some kind of steer – but it’s not looking good. There has been talk of disappointing sales of new models (Tuesday) and its Taiwanese mega-iPhone-assembler Foxconn announced that it would cut billions in costs and shed 10% of its non-technical workforce (Thursday)
• Meanwhile, over in China, Tencent signed an Asia distribution deal with Singaporean company Sea (Tuesday), which should go some way to making up for the troubles it is having in China due to the government there clamping down on gaming companies by not issuing commercial licences. Mind you, it turns out that another income stream is coming in very handy at the moment as it turns out that Tencent just made a third of its profits in investments (Friday)!

• …what with Renault-Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn getting arrested (Tuesday) and then dumped by the Nissan board (Friday) for allegedly using company cash to fund a lavish lifestyle
• Tesla decided to take the tariff hit in China (Friday) instead of passing it on to customers in order to stay relevant in a market that expected to take off in electric vehicles and cut prices of its cars there
• Catalytic converter company Johnson Matthey saw a big share price hike (Thursday) as it benefitted from stronger orders due to tightening emissions regulations

• Gap announced that it was going to cut weaker stores (Wednesday). Fears of rising wages (because of a tight labour market), narrower margins (in an attempt to stay competitive with e-tailers such as Amazon) and higher freight costs are hitting the retail sector as a whole in the US and there are worries that, potentially, rising inventories could be a precursor to retailers having to sell off too much stock at a discount in the coming months
• Ikea announced that it was going to cut staff numbers as it continues to evolve its format (Thursday). However it did say that a rollout of new smaller-format stores over the next two years will actually result in more jobs being created net-net
• There’s scepticism about UK “offline” retailer performance for Black Friday (Monday) as it is expected to benefit e-tailers more
• Kingfisher – owner of B&Q plus others – announced that it is pulling out of non-core markets (Thursday) and will concentrate on turning around its French business while improving in the UK via B&Q and the more successful Screwfix

I must confess that Darts players let rip as they accuse each other of f@rting during match (Sky News, Ajay Nair https://tinyurl.com/ybqmatqv) made me laugh the most and Body part-shocking device is here to stop Japan from nodding off at the wheel, work or school (SoraNews24, Katy Kelly, https://tinyurl.com/ybx7742s) made me think “WTF” the most, so I think I’ll leave you with something that frustrated me the most in There’s a star hidden among over 150 Christmas trees in this brain teaser – can you spot it? (Insider, Talia Lakritz https://tinyurl.com/ycu9nkch)

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• …what with the impact of the midterm elections (Thursday) which could mean a bumpier time for him in the second half of his term
• France and Turkey refused to comply with US sanctions on Iran (Wednesday) although everyone else has remained quiet on that front
• The oil price dipped into bear territory (Friday) ahead of the OPEC meeting this weekend as oil inventories have been trending higher in the last few weeks
• Europe couldn’t decide on a digital tax (Wednesday) as Denmark, Sweden and Ireland chickened out, given the importance of Big Tech to their respective economies

• …with US soybean farmers getting annoyed with the side-effects of Trump’s tariffs (Tuesday) as there have been both winners and losers (Monday) in the trade spat so far with the Chinese
• China’s exports proved to be surprisingly robust (Friday) although Alibaba cut its full-year revenue forecasts (Monday)
• Other Asian countries could stand to benefit from the trade war as supply chains are realigned (Tuesday) with tech companies in Vietnam and Malaysia and Thai auto parts makers being amongst those who could benefit

• Average wages are rising (Thursday) putting pressure on company profits
• Lidl put pressure on its supermarket competitors by raising wages (Tuesday)
• …and retail sales were up (Tuesday) although the pace appears to be slowing down

• Marks and Spencer continue to disappoint (Thursday) although they are currently engaged in their latest turnaround plan
• Mulberry saw its losses widen (Thursday) as it experienced the aftershock of House of Fraser’s collapse, weaker UK demand and lower footfall
• It’s not just chain restaurants that are suffering – independent London restaurants are closing at a record rate (Thursday) as consumers are bombarded with too much choice
• Sainsbury’s continued to harp on about the merits of a merger with Asda (Friday) and Halfords unveiled disappointing profits (Friday) although I think its turnaround plan sounds reasonable

I’m sorry – I admit it. I found this to be the thing that made me laugh the most this week: Teacher accidentally plays p0rn to entire class full of students (Metro, Harley Tamplin https://tinyurl.com/yakv2u6o). Ouch.

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• …as Angela Merkel initially scraped though a regional election (Monday) only to resign her leadership of her party, the CDU (Tuesday). She has said in the past that being the leader of the CDU and the chancellor go hand-in-hand, so some observers think her days are numbered (well she did add that she would exit politics completely in 2021).
• Brazil got a new president (Monday) who has definitely got his work cut out for him (Tuesday) as he tries to drag his country out of its worst ever recession after years of corruption
• We had our last Budget before Brexit (Tuesday) where the giveaways could still be severely dented if we fail to negotiate a clean break with the EU

• …what with IBM buying Red Hat for $33bn (Monday) to boost its cloud computing power and, on a smaller scale…
• WH Smith bought America’s biggest airport electronics retailer InMotion (Wednesday), which will double the size of its international business
• Sports Direct bought Evans Cycles (Wednesday), and immediately said that half the stores will have to close in order for the chain to survive
• The Restaurant Group made a successful bid for Wagamama (Wednesday) and so now “Japanese” cuisine will be in the same stable as Frankie & Benny’s, Garfunkel’s and Chiquito.

• …as Apple announced decent results but disappointing handset sales (Friday)
• Samsung announced record profits (Thursday) but predicted a slowdown
• Facebook admitted that user growth rate was slowing (Wednesday) and
• Spotify said that it was facing difficulties in hiring enough people (Friday) to realise its ambitions. The company is also about to enter into contract negotiations with record companies.

• The outlook continues to be gloomy on the UK high street, heading into Brexit (Wednesday)
• Mothercare announced that it was going to axe 200 jobs at its HQ (Thursday)
• On a positive note, Next announced some solid figures (Thursday) helped by a strong online performance – although there’s a new threat from Amazon in terms of clothing sales (Wednesday)
• Starbucks did OK in terms of sales (Friday) but it’s finding it hard to attract new customers
• Patisserie Valerie lives to fight another day (Friday) after three weeks in limbo

Given that this was Halloween week, I thought I’d leave you with my favourite scary banter. There were the scary toilets in There’s a viral Facebook page that just posts pictures of scary toilets (msn.com, Jacob Shamsian https://tinyurl.com/y9lg6wfo), the creepy shoes in Fashion label launches ‘human skin boots’ in time for Halloween (The Week, Gabriel Power https://tinyurl.com/yamw67mo) and – scariest of all – there was this: Woman’s flesh-coloured leggings cause embarrassing optical illusion – and it looks indecent (The Mirror, Nicola Oakley https://tinyurl.com/ydbhq7c5).

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. *** NB there were only THREE editions of Watson’s Daily this week instead of the usual FIVE. It’ll be back to normal next week! ***

• …as the EU rejected Italy’s budget (Wednesday) which annoyed Italy (Thursday) and Eurozone growth fell to new lows (Thursday). Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is also facing serious potential problems (Thursday) in the upcoming Hesse regional election

• …what with Patisserie Valerie (Thursday), GBK (Thursday) and Debenhams (Thursday, Friday) all facing problems with a new investigation, a CVA, and the company’s biggest ever loss respectively.

• …as Tesla turned a profit (Thursday), China’s Geely announced a ride-sharing JV with Daimler (Thursday) and Ford signalled continued troubles (Thursday)

• WPP had a shocker (Friday) as it continues to ponder its survival in a world increasingly dominated by Google and Facebook.
• Also, Dyson created a stir by announcing a new electric car factory in Singapore (Wednesday), but given the massive tax incentive and proximity to the key Chinese market, you can’t blame Sir James for going abroad for this crucial venture. It is, however, somewhat ironic as he trumpeted the virtues of British manufacturing as a prominent Brexiteer.

The banter that I enjoyed the most this week was Hundreds of waiters try not to spill any drinks in street race (Metro, Jen Mills https://tinyurl.com/ycz2wny3), which is a sort of egg-and-spoon race for adults and then there was the video of a group of guys trying to recreate the Haribo TV advert in https://tinyurl.com/yazu2xla

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• A Hollywood-worthy scandal gathered pace this week as Saudi Arabia was accused of murdering a journalist dissident at its consulate in Isambul (Monday), which was vehemently denied by the Saudis and then followed by various threats and repercussions from both sides (Tuesday, Wednesday). The drama is ongoing.
• China unveiled slowing growth (Friday) but officials tried to calm any market panic. China’s still on track for its year-end 6.5% GDP growth target, though.
• In Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron had a Cabinet reshuffle (Wednesday) after a series of senior resignations as he pressed the refresh button ahead of more attempts at reform. Germany’s Angela Merkel got a buffeting in the Bavarian elections (Monday), which isn’t ideal from her point of view but could actually weaken the voices of detractors in the weak coalition
• And then in the UK, we saw UK wages rise (Wednesday), inflation fall (Thursday) and weaker retail sales (Friday)
• There was also a very interesting development for cryptocurrencies this week as Fidelity Investments announced that it will store and trade Bitcoin and Ether (Tuesday) for hedge funds and other professional investors in the new Fidelity Digital Asset Services business

• US retailer Sears filed for bankruptcy protection (Monday) after plans to rescue it fell flat, online clothing retailer Asos unveiled strong results (Thursday) and New Look announced that it was withdrawing from China (Friday)

• UK house prices continue to weaken (Thursday) and Crest Nicholson had its third profits warning  in two years (Thursday)

• On the one hand, you have US airlines announcing strong results (Thursday) as increased numbers of business class passengers offset higher jet fuel costs and then, on the other, Cypriot airline Cobalt Air ceases operations (Friday) and UK regional carrier Flybe has a profit warning (Thursday).

• Netflix came out with stronger-than-expected subscriber numbers (Wednesday) whilst Uber identified two new business areas – in virtual restaurants (Monday) and catering temping (Friday). Business diversification for Uber could be the key to making its proposed flotation next year more attractive.

My favourite bits of banter this week could be combined to provide a relaxing interlude for you this weekend. You could admire the artistry of the coins in You need to check out this really cool coin that has an amazing hidden feature (Mashable, Xavier Piedra https://tinyurl.com/y78snhpf) whilst listening to the music in Japanese netizen kills time by learning to play a hit J-pop song on…calculators (SoraNews24, Dale Roll https://tinyurl.com/y9mxtvhf) and munching on a something from this place: Toastie restaurant with completely bonkers fillings to open in UK – would you try any of them? (The Mirror, Robyn Darbyshire https://tinyurl.com/y7a5sx8y)

I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

The day in brackets refers to the edition where the story appeared. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• It seems that Turkey is on the brink of calming the dispute it has with the US (Friday) as it looks like it will relent and let the American pastor at the centre of disputed allegations of espionage go home. Trump slapped sanctions on Turkey to get him back and it looks like they worked (plus Turkey needs an ally right now, so needs to play nice). If Andrew Brunson is allowed to go home (deals like this have fallen through at the eleventh hour in the past), this could really ease pressures on the Turkish economy – especially if Trump lifts sanctions.
• Italy instigated investor nervousness as it railed against the EU (Tuesday) as its proposed budget is likely to get blocked by the EU because it will widen the budget deficit. The EU could look bad whatever it does here – it will look weak if it lets it through, effectively giving Italy a “free pass” and if it doesn’t, the populist right-wing Eurosceptic government will have a field day. Presumably both sides will have to find middle ground.
• Markets took a bath this week (Friday) as investor concerns about an over-heated tech sector, trade war tensions, rising inflation and the prospect of five more US interest rate rises prompted a sell-off.

• Facebook unveiled a new gadget this week (Tuesday) in an attempt to enmesh itself even more in our daily lives. The tablet with a clever camera and smart speaker basically brings together functions of existing devices and is intended to help us keep in touch with friends and family. There was a sense of deja vu as Google unveiled a similar device (Wednesday) which has less functionality (no camera) in the belief that privacy conscious users would be tempted to splurge. Which was ironic, because it admitted to a massive data breach (Tuesday)
• Sony committed to a console to replace the PS4 (Tuesday), thus allaying fears that consoles as a concept are going to become extinct in the near-ish future.

• The week kicked off with Jollibee vowing to take on KFC (Monday) as it opened the first of 25 outlets slated for the UK over the next five years.
• Greggs put in a solid performance in the third quarter (Wednesday), powered by drinks and pizza (aren’t we all?) but then fellow baker Patisserie Valerie had its shares suspended (Thursday) after news of a financial black hole in its accounts. Things are not looking good for its survival as things stand and the future of its 2,500 staff and 206 shops hang in the balance (Friday).

• American retailer Sears gets closer to bankruptcy (Thursday) as the chance of a bailout recedes
• Meanwhile, on the UK high street, TK Maxx announces strong sales figures and increasing market share (Wednesday), French Connection put itself up for sale (Monday) – causing its share price to bounce strongly (Tuesday) – and Coast got a lifeline from sister company Karen Millen (Friday).

There was some quite entertaining banter this week, I thought. A new exciting (and no doubt therapeutic) pastime was highlighted in Axe throwing takes aim at sunny Los Angeles (Reuters, Rory Carrol https://tinyurl.com/y7eou2we) and then there was that new innovation in pizza takeaway technology in Clever pizza box turns into a food tray so you can scoff slices in bed (The Mirror, Robyn Darbyshire https://tinyurl.com/ybfjhbd5).

However, the thing that made me laugh the most this week was this: Thomas Cook plane turns X-rated when the door is open thanks to awkward design flaw (The Mirror, Nicola Oakley https://tinyurl.com/yb93ycz5).

AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL, I hope you have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

The day in brackets refers to the edition where the story appeared. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• Trump managed to settle his neighbourly squabble to announce the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (Tuesday) aka “Nafta 2.0” and move forward with trade negotiations. It looks like Trump will use this agreement as a template for negotiations with other countries (Friday).
• Things got a bit tricky in Europe as Macron suffered from yet another senior resignation (Thursday) which will make pushing through his reform agenda slightly more difficult. Clearly he needs to stem this flow as things could go sour for the Eurozone’s second biggest economy.
• In commodities, continued oil price strength has been making life difficult for emerging markets (Friday) and it seems that demand from the Chinese “Belt and Road” initiative is going to push copper prices up for the foreseeable (Thursday)

• Aston Martin’s IPO backfired on debut (Thursday) as investors balked at what turned out to be a rather ambitious valuation. IPOs are meant to get fired up at least on their first day, but the maker of James Bond’s car of choice left everyone shaken, not stirred (sorry, but I just couldn’t resist that).
• Funding Circle’s IPO also disappointed (Thursday), which is a pain for the London Stock Exchange as it doesn’t want to nurture a reputation for being a “loser” exchange. It was rather hoping for a stellar performance to attract other fintech companies to the party, but this has put a spanner in the works for the moment.

• Amazon caused a bit of a stir this week by increasing wages (Wednesday). Chief exec Bezos spun it in a way to make the company look good but in reality I think it’s just responding to recent criticism and – more importantly – it’s probably conscious that labour markets are very tight in the UK and US at the moment and wants to hang on to/attract employees. The other great thing for Amazon is that it happens to put pressure on other employers to increase their wages as well!
• In supermarkets, Aldi reported solid results (Tuesday) in contrast to Tesco, which was hit by poor performance overseas (Thursday)
• Ted Baker had a rare hiccup (Friday) as it joined the high street throng complaining that sales were affected by the extreme weather we’ve had so far this year but online sales were still very strong

• This was a bit of a white-knuckle week for Tesla as Elon Musk got his wrists slapped by the SEC (Monday) for sending that Tweet about him having the finance in place to take Tesla private when he didn’t. As part of the deal, he didn’t have to admit responsibility but the SEC is now forcing him to split his currently dual role of Chairman and CEO. The shares recovered (Tuesday) but appointing a new chairman who can rein in the increasingly erratic Elon Musk is imperative given that Elon Musk took yet again to Twitter in order to vent (Friday).

I would say that this week’s banter got better as the week progressed but I liked Mum reveals her unique way of cooking a full English breakfast – and it’s blowing people’s minds (The Mirror, Caitlin O’Sullivan and Courtney Pochin https://tinyurl.com/ycvoz2pb) and First ever Pringles instant cup ramen noodles are coming to Japan (SoraNews24, Oona McGee https://tinyurl.com/ybln78ba) on the food side of things.

On the other hand, I though that Manchester Students’ Union bans clapping and says jazz hands should be used instead (Metro, Richard Hartley-Parkinson https://tinyurl.com/y7s68n3g) and Putin’s 2019 calendar has him hugging a puppy and the obligatory shirtless shot (Metro, Martine Berg Olsen https://tinyurl.com/y8djr978) were pretty impressive on the weirdness front!

Have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

The day in brackets refers to the edition where the story appeared. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• US interest rates went up by 0.25% to a range of 2% to 2.25%(Thursday), with one more increase likely before year end to be followed up by more next year. This will put even more pressure on Argentina who lost the head of their central bank (Wednesday), although his replacement may smooth the way for an IMF bailout (Thursday). Meanwhile, in Europe, the Swedish PM lost a vote of confidence (Wednesday) that will put his government in disarray and then there was the news that Poland managed to graduate from an “emerging” market to a “developed” market (Tuesday) – the first to do so for ten years.

• The week started off with Comcast winning in the race to buy Sky (Monday), then it got a bit of flak from investors for paying a high price (Tuesday) and moved on to win control (Thursday) signalling the end of the Rupert Murdoch era. The acquisition is an important strategic move for Comcast as it gives them a proper beach head in Europe – something that has eluded many US companies of this ilk.
• Then there were other acquisitions that came to light such as Sirius XM (a US satellite radio group) buying Pandora (a streamer – Tuesday) to strengthen their collective offering against the likes of Apple and Spotify and Michael Kors buying Versace (Tuesday)
• There were rumours of consolidation between French retailers Casino and Carrefour (Tuesday) which Carrefour vehemently denied and it turns out that Amazon has made a couple of approaches to Deliveroo (Tuesday), the company that is currently in early stage talks with Uber.

• American retailer Sears started the week with a financial restructuring proposal to avoid bankruptcy (Tuesday) but continued to run into scepticism (Thursday)
• UK bike retailer Halfords announced a profit warning (Friday) despite also being one of the interested parties in the running to buy another troubled UK bike retailer, Evans (Thursday)
• On the positive side, some clothing retailers unveiled solid results with H&M (Friday), Next (Wednesday) and Boohoo (Thursday) putting in a strong showing. Proof, as if any were needed, that it IS possible to get it right on the high street (and online, of course!).

• There was a big contrast in fortunes for travel agents as Tui announced strong results (Friday) which contrasted sharply with Thomas Cook’s profit warning (Tuesday). This appeared to be broadly down to Tui’s heavier exposure to the higher-margin cruise ship business and Thomas Cook’s exposure to the late bookings market
• ..and then there was Elon Musk getting sued by the SEC (Friday) for sending that Tweet saying that he’d found the backers to take his company private.

I must admit that Man named Anus changes Facebook profile after being butt of too many jokes (Metro, Zoe Drewett https://tinyurl.com/y9wfwlge) made me laugh, but then this was also a week for talented animals such as ‘World’s first’ ice skating dog looks like he’s loving life after almost being put down (The Mirror, Ailbhe MacMahon & Neil Murphy https://tinyurl.com/ybeudx7x) and Seal jumps out of the sea and slaps innocent man in the face with an octopus (Metro, Rob Waugh https://tinyurl.com/yda7huq4).

Have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

The day in brackets refers to the edition where the story appeared. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• Trump kicked off the week with threats of $200bn in extra tariffs (Monday), although he let Apple off (Tuesday) despite virtually all of their gadgetry being made in China. China retaliated (Wednesday) and it now looks like it will be cutting tariffs to non-US countries (Friday) although we don’t know the details yet. Alibaba founder Jack Ma doesn’t like what he’s seeing and said that Alibaba would not follow through on its promise to create one million American jobs (Thursday) because of the recent deterioration in US-China relations.

• There was talk of the DoJ opening a criminal investigation into Tesla (Wednesday) re that whole I’m-taking-my-company-private thing and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) sovereign wealth fund put $1bn into Tesla rival Lucid Motors (Tuesday) although it does sound some way behind Tesla (Wednesday).
• Ferrari made a big fanfare about the electrification of its future models (Wednesday) but stopped short of making anything that was purely electric. Meanwhile, Aston Martin is aiming for a top end valuation (Friday) for its forthcoming Initial Public Offering. Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover had to go to a three-day week (Tuesday) due to sluggish sales.
• Korea’s Hyundai Motor announced plans to produce the world’s first commercially available hydrogen powered truck (Friday) next year. It said it would begin the rollout of 1,000 fuel cell trucks in Switzerland as part of a five-year agreement with Swiss hydrogen company H2 energy. Supporters of this technology believe that it is better suited to heavy vehicles travelling long distances versus 100% electric vehicles that face shorter ranges, long refuelling times and battery degradation.

• The week started off with Amazon employees being investigated for data-leaks-for-bribes (Monday) involving staff selling data to companies wanting to get ahead of the competition. Then news came out that the EU was doing a preliminary investigation looking at the way Amazon uses its data (Thursday) and there was some discussion as to whether the company should split itself into two divisions (Wednesday) – namely retail and cloud businesses – in order to head off any enforced regulatory burdens further down the line. On the plus side, it’s still ploughing ahead with new things (Friday) like a rollout of 3,000 of its cashless stores (an unconfirmed rumour at present), investment in India and a new Alexa-enabled chip that can be put into everyday household devices.

• Cannabis-related news featured a lot this week ahead of legalisation in Canada. Coca-Cola was rumoured to be looking at making cannabis-infused beverages (Tuesday) as part of its diversification away from the fizzy black stuff and then Tilray, a cannabis producer that floated at $17 per share only two months ago, hit $300 (Thursday) on news that it had received approval from the US Drug Enforcement Administration to import one of its products in capsule form to use in a clinical trial to treat a neurological disorder called essential tremor.
• The week ended with some interesting news that Uber is considering the acquisition of Deliveroo (Friday) – but talks appear to be in the early stages. Further consolidation is bound to happen whether this deal goes ahead or not.

TBH it all seemed a bit tame for my liking this week in terms of “bants”, but if I had to choose, the stories I liked most were Uranus Examiner promises to get to the bottom of stories (Metro, Kate Buck https://tinyurl.com/ycwcd6ez) and This is officially Britain’s best lawn (and it took 273 hours to mow) (Metro, Jen Mills https://tinyurl.com/y7dal969)

Have a great weekend! 

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

The day in brackets refers to the edition where the story appeared. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.

• Sweden got the results of its parliamentary elections (Tuesday) which showed a swing in support for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. Although the swing wasn’t quite as bad as originally feared, it was strong enough to leave behind a sticky situation for the remaining centre-left and centre-right parties in forming a government. They really need to sort this before the budget vote, which is due in December
• Although it kind of doesn’t feel like it right now, it was actually a reasonably good week for the UK stats-wise. Wages are going up (Wednesday), job growth in UK manufacturing is at record levels (Friday) and even UK GDP is on the rise (Tuesday). This is good news, but I expect things to calm down the closer we get to Brexit
• The oil price trended higher (Thursday) as global supplies are get tighter. Venezuelan supply has collapsed, Iran can’t take up any production slack because the US is imposing sanctions on it whilst severe outages in Libya and falling supply in Angola are all contributory factors hitting supply just as the US is facing storms that could disrupt the Colonial Pipeline (which runs through the Carolinas) or even the Gulf of Mexico

• Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing announced a big loss (Tuesday) for the first half of the year, against a hostile backdrop due to two of its drivers being involved in the murder of their passengers and public calls for greater safety. The fact is that Didi is WAAAAAY bigger than even its nearest rivals and has built itself up into an absolute beast of a company with 550m registered users – more than 50% of all of China’s internet users – and 30m drivers. I think its sheer scale will see it through, but it needs to square away all this bad news right now or it could find itself in an Uber-like nightmare.
• Volvo decided to postpone its proposed initial public offering (Tuesday) to wait for better market conditions. Volvo, which is owned by China’s Geely, had originally pencilled in an IPO before the end of the year but Trump’s tariff shenanigans has obviously put paid to that for the time being. Not a surprise.
• Yet another senior exec has left Tesla (Friday), as the company’s vice president of worldwide finance and operation, Justin McAnear, following the recent departures of its chief of HR, communications director and senior vice-president of software engineering. Things aren’t going great for Elon Musk at the moment.
• Williams is working on a new joint venture with Unipart, called Hyperbat, which will make batteries for electric cars (Tuesday) that are twice as powerful as those currently being put into Tesla cars. The batteries will be for Aston Martin’s first ever electric car, the RadpidE.

• The world’s biggest retailer, Inditex, unveiled a decent set of results (Thursday) against a mixed backdrop for retailers worldwide. It has managed to strike a decent balance between online and offline services, but other apparel retailers have started to copy its model and it is also facing potential headwinds in the form of currency problems given that almost all of its merch is made in Europe but over half of it is sold outside the Eurozone.
• Debenhams hit the headlines a lot this week, firstly batting away suggestions it was in trouble (Monday) and then towards the end of the week Sports Direct had to issue a formal statement saying that it did not plan on making a formal bid for the department store (Thursday) for six months, whilst at the same time reserving the right to make a bid if there was a “material change of circumstances” with agreement from the board or after a bid from a third party. This all happened because one of the senior execs let slip that the board had discussed the possibility of taking it over.
• John Lewis saw its profits fall by a whopping 99% (Friday) as it continues its major restructuring programme. Its “Never knowingly undersold” promise came in for a lot of criticism, although its chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield defended it. I think it is massively outdated and needs to get ditched given the current retail environment.
• Morrisons announced its best sales figures in years (Friday) as the fruits of the turnaround are starting to come through after store revamps, broadening of product ranges and pepping up the online business via its partnerships with Ocado and Amazon.

• The US Federal Drug Administration said it might ban all flavoured e-cigarettes (Thursday) in order to “narrow the off-ramp for adults to close the on-ramp for kids”. Players in this area such as Juul Labs (which has a massive 70% market share in e-cigarettes) will have 60 days to come up with a plan to stop young people starting the habit. Big tobacco companies saw their shares rise because a) they are used to tons of restrictions b) because vaping is only a tiny bit of their overall business and c) they have far deeper pockets than the smaller specialists.

My favourite bit of “bants” this week was about Surrey Police getting down with the kids in Police hope this embarrassing ‘slang dictionary’ will help them engage with young people (Metro, Harley Tamplin https://tinyurl.com/ycqxxm69). Brilliant. Especially the bit about Stormzy!

Have a great weekend! 

 …is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog  woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

The day in brackets refers to the edition where the story appeared. 

• Tariffs garnered more headlines this week as the US announced its latest tariff attack on China (Wednesday), with the latest round covering 279 products (mainly chemicals and electronic parts) worth about $16bn, bringing the grand total of Chinese products covered by new duties to $50bn so far. China retaliated (Friday) with imposing 25% taxes on $16bn of US imports but notably left oil off the list as it is a big user.
• There was quite a lot of needle going around this week what with the US reimposing economic sanctions on Iran (Tuesday) and Saudi Arabia slamming Canada (Thursday) for criticising its arrest of an activist. It decided to show its displeasure via its central bank and state pension funds ordering their overseas asset managers to sell their Canadian equities, bonds and cash holdings “no matter the cost”, amongst a whole host of other things.
• The Japanese economy managed to return to the growth track (Friday) which should help PM Shinzo Abe get elected for another term next month, but Turkey and its currency continued to suffer (Friday) as President Erdogan continues to resist pressure to let his central bank raise rates which would help to arrest the precipitous slide of the lira.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit….

• …as House of Fraser laboured under a cloud (Friday) only to be bought by Sports Direct for £90m right at the last minute!
• Homebase announced that 60 of its 249 stores are to close (Thursday) as part of a company voluntary agreement to be announced next week with over 1,000 jobs hanging in the balance
• TopShop lost its China online trading partner (Friday) putting a dent in its China ambitions
• …but on the plus side, Ikea announced the opening of its first store in India (Friday) with others to follow. India is likely to be a tricky market for the company, but I think that if it is successful in attracting new local suppliers it could use them to supply shops in other countries and increase margins elsewhere. I suspect that margins in India will be very low.

• …as it all kicked off this week when Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured” (Wednesday, Thursday – but the tweet was at the beginning of the week). The stock rallied, but not to $420 as the market remained sceptical about whether he’d follow through with it. The SEC is looking into whether his claim of “funding secured” is actually true (and if it isn’t, he’ll probably have to face fines and lawsuits) but, from his side, it seems that no final decisions have been made. I think he should stay public as it keeps him from doing anything REALLY stupid and investors have thus far been a very generous source of cash when called upon – a generosity which might not be quite the same under a private owner. Just ask Travis Kalanick, the founder of Uber who was kicked out of the top job by the company’s biggest investors.

I have two faves from this week’s “…and finally” stories: Ed Balls tasered: Former Shadow Chancellor stunned in shock police video – watch here (Daily Express, Rory O’Connor) and Grandfather uses 11 smartphones attached to a bicycle to play Pokemon Go (Metro, Jimmy Nsubuga ), which is a thing of genius. On a serious note, I recommend that you watch the BBC2 documentary that Ed Balls is presenting – it’s a real eye-opener and he does a great job! 

Have a great weekend!