“Meanwhile, if Marine Le Pen prevails in the French election next year, markets would recoil, but with Frexit and Eurexit already off the table, likely only temporarily.”Also on the radar: Scotland will hold elections next week that have put a fresh independence vote back in focus, and the resignation of Northern Ireland’s first minister risks triggering more instability around the implementation of Brexit.Back Down to EarthWhile some sectors struggled last year as economies across Europe locked down, the pandemic restrictions have been a boon to businesses such as online food delivery firms and payments companies.However, with investor expectations now high, there’s a risk that the momentum peters out for some of these lockdown winners.
We’re seeing very substantial inflation.” Rapidly rising prices are viewed with concern by investors as they can eat into returns, drive up interest rates and potentially cause long-term damage to the economy and living standards by eroding the value of workers’ wages.
“Banks’ interest rates are a matter for them and their customers,” central bank Governor Lars Rohde said.Carsten Egeriis, the chief executive of Danske Bank, points out that Danes also enjoy low interest rates on their mortgages, which he called “the other side of the coin.” That dynamic “most of the time far outweighs the cost of negative interest rates on the deposit side,’ he said.Denmark is two years ahead of the euro zone, which first introduced negative rates in 2014.
Over the past five months, Royal Bank of Canada , Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank of Montreal, have announced plans to achieve net-zero emissions, but lacked details including a definition of that goal, interim reduction targets and plans to move away from traditional energy sources.
BP, Shell, Total, Exxon, and Chevron all posted big earnings for the first quarter of 2021 buoyed by a return of the price of a barrel of oil to pre-pandemic levels around $60 per barrel since early February.
While the administration’s plan remains in its infancy and is sure to face intense scrutiny from lawmakers in the months ahead, even an incremental hike in the capital-gains rate would likely spur further ETF usage, according to David Perlman, an ETF strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management.“If capital gains tax rates are going to be higher, if you have a choice of a structure that helps to defer capital gains and gives you more control over when to recognize those gains, you’d be more inclined to go in that direction,” Perlman said.When an investor exits a mutual fund, the fund’s manager must sell securities to raise cash for the redemption.
Warren Buffett on Saturday likened the millions of inexperienced day traders who entered the stock market in the past year to gamblers, and said commission-free brokerages such as Robinhood Financial for promoted a casino-like atmosphere.