The Market Call

Headline grabbing Trump noise from Washington has died down but with concerns around tariffs, and issues in the Ukraine and the Middle East still not settled, Jeremy and Gareth discuss the common theme this week which has been central bankers and companies talking about trade related uncertainty.Overall the forecasts of GDP growth in the major economies in the world are coming down

This week, Jeremy and Gareth mull over the macro situation - the US economy seems to be slowing (but inflation persists) while Europe, especially Germany, has been bullied into spending more than ever. The UK, and arguably Europe, haven't yet seen much benefit from the outflow of capital from the MAG Seven, but remember, the whole German market cap is not dissimilar to the value of

This week, Gareth and Jeremy try to keep up with the gyrations from across the Atlantic - both around defence alliances and tariff policies.In terms of the impact on Europe and the UK, Germany is stepping up and spending big, which is driving up both (European) stock markets and (German) borrowing costs. Trump seems to be ignoring the stock market and is probably happy that US borr

Jeremy and Gareth talk this week about Trump 2.0 launching with a number of "adults in the room" who Trump trusts, and who can get things done. One thing that might get done is a US/UK trade deal...Jeremy describes how the stars could align, and how the UK's separation from Europe might save us from the worst of Trump's tariffs. Absent much other UK stock news, Jeremy talks about L

This week, Gareth and Jeremy catch up on the week that marked one full month since Trump's return to the White House. Following JD Vance's lecture to Europe in Munich, the US initiated peace talks with Russia in Riyadh. This confirmed that the old world order has moved to a new one involving power projection by strong men operating in their own economic and strategic interests. Eur

This week, Gareth and Jeremy tackle the investment implications of Trump 2.0. After shocking the world with his suggestion of turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East, Trump has moved on to Ukraine. Such events illustrate how the accepted World order has broken down. Where is the UN in all of this? One outcome has been a new all-time high in the gold price, indicating heigh

This week, Gareth is joined by Progressive's Building & Construction analyst, Alastair Stewart. The pair muse on Trump's tariff-based discussions with various world leaders, with Xi Jinping (the obvious and most-dangerous outlier) adding a bit of Chinese spice to the mix, with some largely-unreported moves. Alastair describes the UK building stocks, and their reaction to the Ba

With Jeremy enjoying sunnier climes, Gareth is joined by George O'Connor, the Progressive tech analyst. The week has been dominated by DeepSeek's sudden unveiling of a low-cost Chinese-created competitor in the AI (large language model) world. George provides some useful perspective on what this means more broadly. If the Magnificent Seven US tech names lose some of their lustre, t

Jeremy and Gareth talk through the first week of Trump's second term - tariffs are delayed and perhaps downgraded, and Donald has told the Davos attendees how to grow their economies so they can pay for NATO. Closer to home, Rachel Reeves is unveiling policy after policy designed to spur growth...can it last? And can it work? This week saw a slew of announcements from UK stocks - b

With peace breaking out in the Middle East, and Trump taking back the keys to the White House, the world is changing fast...Jeremy and Gareth discuss the ways that the USA is causing trouble for other countries - and Rachel Reeves. But some benign inflation data rode to the rescue, and UK companies reporting "in line" trading are putting on double-digit percentage price gains: perh