The most expensive number in the world this week was 0.6. That is how much American consumer prices rose in September alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. By Thursday morning in Seoul, it helped knock South Korea’s main stock index down more than 7%. If you have ever wondered how a
America’s Prices Rose. Seoul’s Chip Stocks Fell. Read More »
The man at the pump next to me on Thursday evening stood watching the numbers roll with the expression people usually save for a parking fine. He clicked off at a round figure, looked at it, and shook his head. He will almost certainly never sail through the Strait of Hormuz. Neither will I. And
The Strait You Will Never See Sets Your Petrol Price Read More »
Have you ever booked a table at the restaurant everyone raves about, sat down, eaten a perfectly good meal, and walked out feeling faintly let down? Nothing was wrong. It just was not the evening you had already enjoyed in your head for a fortnight. That, more or less, is what happened to markets this
The Summit Everyone Priced In, Then Priced Out Read More »
I had Tuesday, 15 September circled for weeks. Cloture vote, the moment the crypto industry would finally find out where it stood in Washington. I treated it like a verdict. It turned out to be more of a footnote, and I was wrong about how much it would matter. When I wrote about the Digital
The CLARITY Act Stalled. The Rules Did Not. Read More »
The man at the next pump was staring at the display as though it had insulted his family. I knew the feeling. By the time the nozzle clicked off, I had paid noticeably more for the same tank than I would have in the spring, and the official figures published the following morning explained exactly
Inflation Hit 3.1%, The Bank of England Held Anyway. Read More »
Crude oil went back over $100 a barrel this week, WTI up 4.2% to just over $100, Brent up 3.6% to just over $105, its highest level since July. The cause will not surprise anyone following the news: renewed tension between the US and Iran, the same story that has been flaring and cooling for
Oil Broke One Hundred Dollars. My Shop Noticed First Read More »
I have never met a free cheque I did not want to believe in. So when President Trump revived the promise of a five-thousand-dollar payment to Americans, funded by tariff revenue, I did what I always do with a number that sounds too good. I got out a calculator. The promise, in full The idea
The Five Thousand Dollar Cheque That Cannot Add Up Read More »
Ask a banker what worries them about crypto; increasingly, the honest answer is not Bitcoin. It is stablecoins, and specifically the fact that the two largest ones are not issued by a bank at all. On September 1, twenty-one of the world’s largest financial institutions decided to stop watching that gap from the sidelines. Names
Why Major Banks Want Their Own Digital Dollar Read More »
Somewhere in New York this year, a professional tennis player lost their very first match at the US Open, packed up, and went home a hundred and forty thousand dollars richer. Not the champion. Not even close to the champion. Someone whose entire tournament lasted a single afternoon. That number stopped me, and the more
The Tennis Player Who Lost Round One and Still Made $140,000 Read More »
The Afternoon It Started I was halfway through making a coffee on Friday afternoon when my phone did the thing it does when a price alert goes off twice in ten minutes. I already knew what it meant before I looked. Somewhere in Wyoming, a man in a suit had started talking, and bitcoin had
The Speech That Cost Bitcoin Three Per cent in an Afternoon Read More »
