One of the hot topics on yesterday’s first-ever Capital and Conflict roundtable was whether or not Britain’s trade with the rest of the world would boom once it got out of the European Union. Mike Hollings from Shard Capital pointed out that Napoleon’s interference with British trade on the continent forced the country to look abroad. Then, a golden age ensued and the Empire bloomed.
You can listen to the roundtable discussion here. For that observation alone – that Brexit could be bad for the European Union but an economic liberation for the UK – the discussion is worth listening to. But there was more gold from Charlie Morris, Tim Price, and Dominic Frisby.
You’ll also hear a lot about the FTSE 100
But also about UK interest rates, bitcoin, China, gold, who shot JR Ewing. I kicked the discussion off asking the panellists what was the biggest story yesterday: the widening of credit default swap spread for Glencore, the revelation that the creator of bitcoin could be an Australian polymath, or the news that NASA and Google have created a quantum computer that’s 100 million times faster than your PC?
The most surprising moment for me? There was a lot of concern that China may take the world deeper into debt deflation next year. It would be catastrophe for commodities. And in the debt market – between high-yield junk, emerging market debt denominated in dollars, and even sovereign debt – the dangers exposed in 2008 are not only still with us. They’re worse.
That part wasn’t cheerful. But the tone was generally upbeat. That’s what you get when you get a bunch of smart people in a room to talk about money. The whole shebang is here.
Category: Brexit