Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
The charts that matter: don’t miss these podcasts
John Stepek ends the week with some quality listening material, plus the charts that matter most to the global economy.
A lot of quality listening material for you this week – first, there’s a new MoneyWeek podcast. Merryn and I cover everything from the idea of offices being hubs of creative serendipity (I veer towards “no”, she’s a bit less negative), to house prices and the stamp-duty cut, to central planning, inflation and protecting your portfolio from it all. Tune in by clicking on this link.
I also had a very enjoyable chat with The Week Unwrapped team. I talked about the stockmarket versus the economy, while we also covered falling fertility (remember back when we were all worrying about overpopulation, oh, about two minutes ago?), working from home, and managed to throw in a brief mention of MMT – which stands for Modern Monetary Theory, or possibly Magic Money Tree. Listen to it here.
Try 6 free issues of MoneyWeek today
Get unparalleled financial insight, analysis and expert opinion you can profit from.
Sign up for MoneyWeek’s free twice-daily newsletter.
Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
And if you’re looking for some summer reading, my book The Sceptical Investor, is a timeless guide to contrarian investing, even if I do say so myself. You can pick it up on Amazon (or get it on audio here).
Here are the links for this week’s editions of Money Morning and other web stories you may have missed.
Also, don’t forget to sign up for our next webinar, ready to view on 28 July. Merryn will be interviewing James Dow, co-manager of Baillie Gifford’s Scottish American Investment Company, about where to find sustainable dividend income in a post-coronavirus world. Register to watch the interview here – it’s completely free.
The US dollar index (DXY – a measure of the strength of the dollar against a basket of the currencies of its major trading partners) continued to drift lower this week. All else being equal, that’s good news for risk markets – in effect, a weaker dollar means looser monetary policy for the whole world.
(DXY: three months)
The Chinese yuan (or renminbi) continued to strengthen against the dollar (when the black line on the chart below falls, the yuan is getting stronger). The number of yuan to the dollar dropped below the ¥7/$1 mark once viewed as a warning sign of pending devaluation by the Chinese government. As a reminder, a stronger yuan is generally bullish – it means there’s less risk of China exporting deflation.
(Chinese yuan to the US dollar: since 25 June 2019)
The yield on the ten-year US government bond was flat this week, though it’s close to a record low.
(Ten-year US Treasury yield: three months)
Similarly, the yield on the Japanese ten-year was barely changed.
(Ten-year Japanese government bond yield: three months)
And it was the same story for the yield on the ten-year German Bund.
(Ten-year Bund yield: three months)
Copper continued its incredible record – it got a bit over-excited early in the week but still finished higher. It really has had an extraordinary run.
(Copper: three months)
The Aussie dollar was little changed on the week.
(Aussie dollar vs US dollar exchange rate: three months)
Cryptocurrency bitcoin’s trading range just seems to be getting tighter and tighter.
(Bitcoin: three months)
This week’s US weekly jobless claims figure was little better than last week. The number of new claims came in at 1.3 million (down from just 10,000 from 1.31 million last time). The four-week moving average now sits at 1.37 million, compared to last week’s 1.44 million.
(US jobless claims, four-week moving average: since June 2019)
The oil price (as measured by Brent crude) was little changed on the week.
(Brent crude oil: three months)
Amazon fell back below the $3,000 mark as the Nasdaq hit a speed bump early in the week, surging to a record high then slipping back on Monday.
(Amazon: three months)
But electric car group Tesla had yet another dramatic move higher, partly on speculation that it could end up joining the S&P 500 soon (which means it would end up in all those lovely tracking funds that everyone buys these days).
(Tesla: three months)
Explore More
Sign up for MoneyWeek's newsletters
Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
