Bank of America said on Friday that a policy trifecta of lower taxes, lower tariffs, and lower interest rates could fuel a new speculative bubble in markets.The prediction comes as Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” which would lower taxes among other fiscal measures, sits with the Senate after passing the House of Representatives last week. Meanwhile, Trump continues to pursue trade deals and has ramped up calls for the Fed to lower interest rates.BofA investment strategist Michael Hartnett said that policy could fuel a “deeper” rotation out of bonds and into a handful of areas of the stock market —…
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Image source: Getty Images After a roller-coaster ride in April and May, the UK’s FTSE 100 index is back to levels seen at end-February. As I write, the blue-chip index stands at 8,786.37 points, just 0.3% below its close on 28 February. Having peaked at 8,908.82 on 3 March, the Footsie then plunged after President Trump introduced hefty new tariffs on US imports. At 2025’s low, the index hit rock-bottom on 7 April, plunging to 7,544.83. This left it 15.3% below its all-time record high. Fortunately, the UK stock market has come roaring back and now lies 16.5% above 2025’s…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Start-ups and companies seeking scale-up funding no longer flock to the stock market as readily as they once did. Many bypass the high street banks too. The reason? They have other options thanks to the ready availability of different types of funding from private markets, at least for those businesses showing fast growth potential. Private capital markets, which have grown significantly in recent years, offer services ranging from debt funding, seed and venture capital to minority stakes and full buyouts. Their efforts to…
Image source: Getty Images On several occasions in recent years, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has said: “AI has the potential to be more transformative than electricity or fire.” I’ve been spending some time thinking about how AI could either electrify or burn down companies in my ISA/SIPP portfolio. There’s evidence emerging that the internet is already shifting from being search-driven to AI-driven. In other words, a zero-click internet is developing, where users get what they need from AI summaries without visiting external websites. This could trigger second- and third-order effects, impacting many internet-based business models. Somewhat fittingly then, I asked…
Image source: Getty Images Chinese stocks are normally valued at a discount to their US peers, even if they’re in hyper-growth mode. Take PDD Holdings (NASDAQ: PDD), which is a Chinese e-commerce company that trades at the sort of valuation you’d expect to see from a FTSE 100 value stock. The Temu owner grew its revenue and earnings by 59% and 78%, respectively, last year. Yet the stock has tumbled 17% in a week and now trades at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 2.6 and a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of just 10.5. At first glance, this looks unjustifiably cheap. So,…
Image source: Getty Images Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR) is a former penny stock that has been on my mind recently. I sold shares of this flying taxi start-up about a year ago, just before they went on to surge by more than 200%. Cue Homer Simpson’s famous catchphrase… Rubbing salt in the wounds was rival Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY), the stock I doubled down on with the cash from that Archer sale. Until recently, it was ‘only’ up about 40% over this period. So I was beginning to think I might have backed the wrong horse, especially after Archer signed…
Image source: Getty Images Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed on the London Stock Exchange are a fantastic way to invest in themes inside an ISA. They also give instant exposure to a wide selection of companies, thereby helping to spread risk through diversification. Here are three ETFs spanning cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI) and defence I think have tons of potential and are worth further research. No longer a luxury First up is L&G Cyber Security UCITS ETF (LSE: ISPY). This fund holds 41 stocks across the increasingly relevant cybersecurity industry. In recent weeks, Marks and Spencer, Co-op and Harrods have all been…
At their meeting in April, the Greenville ISD Board of Trustees worked on reducing the district’s debt burden. For the fourth time in five years, the board voted to refinance and/or pay off outstanding bonds ahead of schedule. On May 22, that early defeasance of bonds was finalized,Through those four defeasances, through a combination of scheduled payments, refinancing at lower interest rates and early repayments, the district has reduced its total principal and interest obligations by $89.7 million since 2020. × This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable…
City Council progressives are outraged by the NYPD’s new policy to criminalize cycling, but Council Speaker Adrienne Adams says more discussion is needed before the body takes action against a policy that experts say puts immigrant workers at risk.On Wednesday, Los Deliveristas Unidos rallied at City Hall to demand the NYPD stop its escalation of cycling violations from traffic tickets to criminal summonses that require presence in court, a policy that started on April 28, as Streetsblog reported.Progressive Council members Alexa Avilés (D-Sunset Park), Tiffany Cabán (D-Astoria), Sandy Nurse (D-Bushwick), Shahana Hanif (D-Kensington), Crystal Hudson (D-Crown Heights), and Lincoln Restler…
Wealthy nations and big corporations, often major polluters, are paying the country to protect its forests, plant trees, or adopt clean energy initiatives — all to reduce planet-heating pollution Source link