Ray Douglas

@LutonTown That Stevenage goal did not cross the line

We gave it everything.

@LutonTown That Stevenage goal did not cross the line

Morris gives us the lead.

Regarding these latest charts from the Financial Times: The question isn't whether US equity markets are better positioned than Europe to weather the impact of the war. Between superior fundamentals and stronger technicals, the US clearly holds the edge—valuation gaps notwithstanding. The big question IMO is whether the current levels of both markets are justifiable given the global economic outlook. At this stage, market resilience is less about macro likelihoods and more of a bet on insulation due to big tech dominance, technical momentum, and entrenched investor conditioning. More to follow. #economy #markets

@LutonTown You're on a 9-game unbeaten run, with 8 games unbeaten in the league

The points are shared.

Posted earlier today: FYI, here’s the link to my column on who lost the UK bond market—the what, why, and so what... and also what to do about it: ft.com/content/4b2588… #economy #markets #bonds #uk @FT

▫ Hedge funds ramp up wagers against European stocks as was casts shadow ▫Short positions surge ▫Region exposed to energy crisis ▫Low-cost airlines hit ▫UK an 'easy target' ▫Rachel Rees, @J_Vincent_Viz @RayDouglasUK @FT #frontpagestoday #UK 🇬🇧

@HayekAndKeynes NATO is a defensive alliance, so irrelevant to this discussion…

My base case last week was a Trump withdrawal, with the rest of the world stepping in to stabilize. This was the best possible path out of this situation in my humble opinion. It does look like Trump tested that path. He signaled a pullback while implicitly expecting NATO and a broader coalition to secure the strait. They utterly failed to deliver. The UK was one of the few willing to actually engage militarily. Parts of Eastern Europe showed some willingness, but with limited capacity. Core Western/Central Europe leaned the other direction—more open to negotiated access (including tolerating things like Iranian-imposed tolls) rather than using force. This left Trump quite frustrated and forced to go it alone. There was no coalition of the willing. Only the fears of the timid. Iran, for its part, has played this stage tactically well. By selectively allowing passage for “neutral” vessels, they’ve created an off-ramp that reduces urgency for collective action. Countries were heavily incentivized. That weakened coalition formation. So now the decision set narrows: either force the issue and reopen Hormuz, escalate kinetically on the way out. Both paths carry the same underlying risk: short-term disruptions morph into a structurally longer outages if strikes extend to Iranian supply or spill over into broader Gulf infrastructure via retaliation. I hoped deeply (maybe even to the point of delusion) we could avoid that path. There is still time for a deal but I don’t think Trump will just walk away at this point. TACO is a funny little phrase designed to irritate Trump but any serious observer should recognize there has been very little sign of cowardice in his second administration. He is focused on bringing his vision of the world to life.

@TracyWesterman @JohnCassidy

Let this sink in. In 2015, the Iran nuclear deal capped uranium enrichment at 3.5% with full international inspections. The IAEA repeatedly confirmed Iran was complying. Trump’s own Secretary of Defence testified it was in America’s national security interest to keep it. Trump tore it up in 2018 because it had Obama’s name on it. Iran immediately accelerated its nuclear program — exactly what the deal was designed to prevent. Eight years, a war, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars later — Trump’s envoys are now trying to negotiate the same enrichment limits and verification measures that already existed in the deal he destroyed. Read that again. He broke a working agreement. Created the crisis. Started a war. And is now trying to negotiate his way back to where we started — except now with less leverage, more enemies, and a body count. This isn’t dealmaking. This is ego dressed up as foreign policy. A man who burned down the house and is now asking for credit because he called the fire brigade. Meanwhile, the rest of the world — including Australia — is paying the price. Fuel shortages. Economic instability. A region in flames. All because one man couldn’t tolerate his predecessor’s name on a functioning agreement. The Art of the Deal in reverse.

Suspicious high-volume trades before major POTUS announcements have been a disturbing pattern during the Trump admin. Monday was no different as nearly half a billion $ in oil futures trading occurred irregularly just 15 minutes before Trump’s comments pointing to de-escalation in Iran. CC @FT

The @FT’s @katie_martin_fx: “It is hard, in that environment, to pick the market moves that really matter. This week’s wild ride in UK government bonds is, I think, one of them. It is an early warning sign of how a commodity shock, in oil and gas, can morph into a bond shock that hurts government finances far and wide and jacks up borrowing costs for us all.” #economy #uk #markets #MiddleEastWar

A chart that tells a story…. It shows the relative growth in wealth of top 10% since the 2008 crash

The Trump trade is dead. Long live the anti-Trump trade. Wherever you look in financial markets, you see signs that global investors are going out of their way to avoid Donald Trump’s America. More on this in the Chartbook Top Links today.

.@nvidia #ai #economy #markets @FT

Market breadth is experiencing a historic improvement: 66% of S&P 500 stocks are outperforming the index year-to-date, the highest since data began in 1986. The percentage has more than DOUBLED from the extreme concentration seen in 2023, 2024, and 2025, when only 29%, 29%, and 31% of stocks beat the index, respectively. This is an even stronger reading than during the 2000 Dot-Com bubble burst in 2000-2002. This means 332 of the S&P 500 members are exceeding the +0.7% YTD gain of the index. Interestingly, Nvidia, $NVDA, is the only stock from the Magnificent 7 gaining more than the benchmark so far this year. Market leadership becoming slightly broader.

"Wherever you look in financial markets, you see signs that global investors are going out of their way to avoid Donald Trump’s America." ft.com/content/cfdc8e…

@Birdyword As someone who has done the maths, bitcoin is way more volatile than bitcoin

I haven't done the maths but my suspicion from the chart is that bitcoin's volatility is slightly higher, so risk-adjusted returns may already be somewhere below the S&P

5-year returns to the S&P 500 are getting very close to beating the 5-year returns of bitcoin for the first time since early 2023

Paul Volcker would hike 50bps today, and be smoking a cigar while doing it

"Since 2018, securitisation of US data centre debt has totalled $63.6bn, according to JPMorgan — $27bn of that in 2025. The EU has managed just $0.8bn." Europe’s AI ambitions are running into a markets plumbing problem My latest @FT

Shocking stat of the day: The top 10% of US earners now reflect a record 49% of all consumer spending. This percentage has risen +13 points over the last 30 years, marking a dramatic shift in spending power. At the same time, the bottom 80% of earners represent just ~37% of total consumer expenditures, down -11 percentage points since 1995. This means the top 10% account for a record 33% of US GDP, as personal consumer expenditures account for 68% of total economic output. Meanwhile, the bottom 80% account for just 25% of the US economy. Asset owners are the only winners in this economy.

🇬🇧 Best year for UK stocks in 16 years In a rare bright spot for Britain, London's blue-chip benchmark ended 2025 up more than 20%. The FTSE 100 even beat Wall Street's S&P 500 #FTSE100 #UKStocks #Markets