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.
MACRO WAS EXCITING AND BITCOIN JUMPED...
- There was a lot of manufacturing data out this week. Positive numbers for manufacturing in the US (Tuesday) and China (Tuesday, Friday) helped to cheer markets – and the UK even showed surprisingly good numbers (Tuesday) although this is largely due to companies stockpiling ahead of Brexit. On the other hand, German manufacturing performance was decidely underwhelming (Tuesday, Friday)
- Trump hinted that trade talks were going well with China, but they didn’t end up setting a date for a “final” summit (Friday)
- The Brexit farce rumbled on, but the only real developments are that May is talking to Corbyn and we’re supposedly not going to have a “no deal”. God knows what will happen ahead of the Brussels meeting next week
- Bitcoin shot up this week to breach the $5,000 mark (Wednesday), with a big $100m buy order from Asia thought to be the cause. It has continued to trade around/just under the $5,000 since then
CONSUMERS AND RETAILERS ALIKE SAW SOME INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS...
- UK consumers saw the living wage go up (Monday) as car insurance premiums have been coming down (Friday), but then again car sales continue to be weak (Friday) as does spending on the high street (Friday) and consumers will find it harder to win money to increase their spending power as the FOBT maximum bet has been slashed from £100 to £2 (Monday), which will kill a lot of high street bookies (especially the smaller ones)
- Meanwhile, over in America, Amazon decided to slash the prices of 500 products at its Whole Foods grocery division (Tuesday) and move further into the potentially lucrative area of healthcare (Friday) while traditional retailers continue to suffer – as evidenced by higher vacancy rates at shopping malls (Wednesday)
- There was drama in the UK boardroom as company co-founder Julian Dunkerton rejoined Superdry (Wednesday) at which point the whole board resigned and non-execs put in their notice. Dunkerton has his work cut out for sure…
THERE WERE SOME MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS BY CAR MANUFACTURERS...
- Ford announced that it would roll out 30 new models in the next three years in China (Thursday) in an effort to stem the slide in sales. It sounds like too little too late for me, but I guess they can’t ignore market the size of China
- Tesla said that it was having trouble with deliveries of the Model 3 (Thursday) which shouldn’t really be a surprise given Tesla’s disastrous record of living up to deadlines. Still, the market didn’t like it…
THERE WERE ALSO SOME BIG STORIES ON MAJOR COMPANIES THIS WEEK...
- Boeing’s nightmare went from bad to worse (Friday) as the Ethiopian investigators found that the pilots were not at fault. If this is confirmed, I think it could be disastrous for Boeing as compensation claims could be enormous and the dent to its reputation could take a very long time to repair. Airbus may well benefit as a result…
- Nomura announced big cuts (Friday) – namely $1bn in cost savings, shutting down 20% of their branches in Japan and slashing a load of jobs in Europe (especially London). The tough times continue for mid-tier brokerages with top-tier aspirations…
- Burger King signed a distribution deal with Impossible Foods (Wednesday) which really brings meat-substitutes closer to the mainstream
- Saudi Aramco unveiled just how darn profitable they are (Tuesday) making companies like Apple and Google look like amateurs
BANTER
My favourite banter this week was something that was actually published today: Uri Geller claims he caused Commons roof leak with his psychic powers (The Metro, James Hockaday http://tinyurl.com/yyk5kbl3). Apparently, he sent a letter to Theresa May last month saying “As much as I admire you, I will stop you telepathically from doing this – and believe me I am capable of executing it”. What a total kn0b. Stick to the spoons, mate…
Have a great weekend!