Latest articles by Alex Rankine
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Oil price hits seven-year high after Abu Dhabi attack
News The oil price hit a seven-year high after Houthi rebels in Yemen staged a drone attack on an oil storage site in Abu Dhabi.
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Industrial metals: electric vehicles are driving a boom in prices
News The soaring popularity of electric vehicles is pushing up the price of the industrial metals that make up the batteries.
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Why the uranium price is set to keep rising
News Turmoil in Kazakhstan – the world's leading producer of uranium, has sent the uranium price up by more than 8% in a week. And that's not the end of it.
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Russian stocks suffer as the world fears it will invade Ukraine
News Despite a booming economy, Russian stocks look extraordinarily cheap – but if it invades Ukraine, the Russian stockmarket will become all but uninvestable.
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Tech stocks teeter as US Treasury bond yields rise
News The realisation that central banks are about to tighten their monetary policies caused a sell-off in the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock index and the biggest rise in US Treasury bond yields since 2019.
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French stocks are back in fashion
News France’s CAC 40 stockmarket index gained 29% in 2021, making it the world’s best performing major market.
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Erdogan’s risky bluff to save the Turkish lira
News Turkey's autocratic president has said the government will guarantee lira deposits against further deterioration in the exchange rate. Few people are convinced by the idea.
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Crunch time for stockmarkets as interest rates rise
News Stockmarkets, having been puffed up by ultra-low interest rates, are in for a rough ride as the world’s central banks start to raise them.
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Commodity markets rally as demand for raw materials climbs
News Commodity markets have soared this year as reopening economies and the transition to green energy have driven a boom in demand for raw materials.
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How to cut your home energy costs
Advice It has never been more expensive to keep your home warm. Alex Rankine explains how to keep your home energy costs down
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Myanmar: a coup, a civil war, a crisis and China
Briefings Myanmar was heading in the right direction after decades of isolation before the army seized control again in February. Now the outlook is increasingly grim.
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Central banks fall far behind the curve on inflation
News The Bank of England may have raised interest rates and the US Federal Reserve is tightening policy too, but with inflation soaring, is it too little too late?
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2021: a year to forget for investors in emerging market stocks
News Emerging market stocks have fallen from favour with international investors, with the MSCI Emerging Markets index down by more than 4% since the start of the year.
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Writing a will: how to make sure you get it right
Advice If you die without a will, you bequeath your relatives a big headache. Here's how to make sure that doesn't happen.
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US stockmarket bubble has started to deflate
News Sanity is making a tentative return to stockmarkets, with frothier corners of the market finally starting to deflate.
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Investors shrug off inflation fears – for now
News US inflation is at its highest since 1982. Investors seem unworried – but how long will that last?
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Insurance renewal quotes: new rules mean you may not have to switch
Advice Consumers have long complained that car and home insurance renewal quotes rise every year unless they switch. But from next month, insurers will be banned from penalising long-standing customers.
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Mexican stockmarkets lose their spice
News Mexico's economy is in poor shape – its GDP shrank by 8.3% last year and the recovery has been bumpy. And despite a 13% rise in value this year, investors are deserting its stockmarket.
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Omicron variant takes a bite out of bitcoin
News Far from being a modern safe haven against market crashes, bitcoin fell by more than 20% this week as the Omicron variant ran rampant.
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Interest rates: could Jerome Powell remove the markets’ “punch bowl”?
News Markets have bounced on suggestion that the Omicron variant may be a less serious strain of Covid-19. But the Federal Reserve has turned hawkish, and there will be no more market bailouts.
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Investing for children: should you get your child a Jisa?
Advice There are several tax-efficient savings options for your children, with a junior individual savings account (Jisa) one of the more popular. So should you buy your child a jisa?
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Lithium price embarks on a long boom
News Rising demand for electric vehicles has driven the lithium price in China up by 276% since the start of the year to $30,940 a tonne
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Bubbles grow in global property markets as house prices continue to rise
News House prices grew by 6% in the year to mid-2021 in 25 global cities, with the German property market in particular showing signs of overheating.
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Stockmarkets are trading on thin ice as Omicron variant spreads
News The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is driving stockmarkets down, with travel and leisure stocks particularly badly hit.
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