News & Insight • Weekly Newsletters

30 April 2021 | William Buckhurst

That Was The Week That Was

MACRO

• In the UK, the ONS said that households’ net wealth rose to £11.4tn, the equivalent of £172,000 per person
• In the US, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the recovery is “uneven and far from complete.” While he noted that inflation pressures could rise in the coming months, these “one-time increases in prices are likely to only have transitory effects on inflation”
• US data showed that the pace of government spending increased at an annual rate of 6.3%, the fastest since 2002

STATISTIC OF THE WEEK

Big tech continues on a roll. In every minute of the first three months of 2021, the “Famous Five” Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, sold products and services worth about $2.5m combined. Profits before tax came in at $88bn – more than $1bn of profit for every working day

COMPANY NEWS

Another very busy week for results. We are 44% of our way through Q1 results season and numbers have, on the whole, been outstanding:

• Microsoft showed consistency across all its divisions with revenues of $41.7bn and earnings above consensus expectations
• Alphabet released very strong results with revenue growth of 34% and a big share buy-back
• Amazon posted impressive revenues of $108.5bn and continued to see very strong growth in its cloud business
• Keyence, the Japanese factory automation specialist, revenue for the quarter came in at ¥161.3bn, up 15% year-on-year, marking an all-time high
• BP’s debt came down to $33bn and they are buying back $500m of shares
• Office-space provider IWG's first-quarter update showed encouraging trends in both franchise agreements and enterprise accounts

FUNDS

Taylor Maritime announces its $250m fund launch to take advantage of the historic low pricing in second hand geared dry bulk cargo ships

SMALL-CAP NEWS

Following on from the successful equity raise earlier in April, the management of Kistos, led by Andrew Austin, completed the reorganisation of the Tulip Oil debt this week by successfully secured binding commitments for a new €90m senior secured bond issue with maturity in November 2024. This brings this exciting purchase closer to completion

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

1933: The last day for Americans to turn in their gold after Executive order 6102 outlawed the ownership of gold. US citizens were forced to exchange their gold for $20.67 per ounce

1994: Nelson Mandela claimed victory in the wake of South Africa’s first democratic elections; President F.W. de Klerk acknowledged defeat.

RE-OPENING TIMES

Crtain vowls just arn’t arning thir kp anymor. On Monday, a Scottish asst managr, formerly known as Aberdeen, said it would nix a fw of th troublmakrs as it rebrands to Abrdn

MARKET DATA

 As at 30^th April 2021. Source: Financial Express

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