Investment briefing
Towards the end of January, shares in GameStop, an old-school American video games retailer, were driven higher by a cohort of (largely) young day traders looking to make a killing, armed with laptops and furlough cheques.
Investment briefing
Katana & Wakizashi
Once again, the price of bitcoin is on the tear, encouraged by the launch of SEC-registered exchange traded funds, led by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. That, a cap on interest rate rises (making risk assets more attractive versus plain old cash) , the ubiquitous ‘halving’ event (which cuts the reward for mining Bitcoin transactions in half, artificially reducing new supply at roughly four-year intervals) and rumours of potential Russian sanctions dodging, have propelled the cryptocurrency to new highs.
Investment briefing
The approval of vaccines to counter the misery of COVID-19 has driven equity markets higher into the New Year as a hint of, whisper it, ‘normality’ can be glimpsed on the horizon.