Ireland has issued a 100-year bond priced to yield 2.35%. "Money has to go somewhere", as Lex notes in the Financial Times, and, in this era of ultra-low interest rates, a decent yield is proving more and more elusive. But buying this bond is only remotely justifiable if we face "a century of not particularly inflationary growth and governments with iron discipline" completely unlike the last 100 years, in other words.
As the chart of British gilt yields (see chart) over three centuries suggests, economies are volatile, governments spendthrift, and inflation can hardly be expected to spend decades at a time in a coma.
Statistic of the week
That was the lowest quarterly figure for IPOs since the first three months of 2009, with only three companies eclipsing $100m. It was also the first quarter since mid-2009 where cancelled listings exceeded successful deals.
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But the market rebound since mid-February, along with a 20% bounce in an index tracking the last two years' biggest IPOs, bodes well for a recovery in flotations.
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FCA: Banks are still short-changing savers
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What would the greatest mathematician of the Middle Ages say about gold today?
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This chart pattern could be extraordinarily bullish for gold
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Believe it or not, this market is a “buy”
Charts With the world in the state it’s in and the market so volatile, buying stocks right now might go against all your instincts. But that’s just what you should be doing, says Dominic Frisby. Here, he explains why.
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Chart of the week: avocados and bitcoin are in sync
Charts An amusing new spurious correlation has been spotted between the price of bitcoin and Mexican Hass avocados. In reality, of course, they have nothing to do with each other beyond “superficial price action”.
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Chart of the week: Kuwait's stockmarket is ready for take-off
Charts Kuwait's stockmarket is due to be promoted from “frontier” status to an emerging market by index provider MSCI next June. That should entice almost $10bn of global investors’ cash into the country.
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Chart of the week: US stocks outrun profits
Charts The US stockmarket has become totally detached from underlying profits of its constituent companies over the past three years.
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Chart of the week: Dr Copper diagnoses an ailing economy
Charts The price of copper has slipped by a fifth this year and is now at a near-two-year low of around $5,600 a tonne.
