News & Insight • Weekly Newsletters

05 September 2025 | William Buckhurst

That Was The Week That Was

MACRO NEWS

The deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, resigned in light of her underpayment of Stamp Duty, leading to more pressure on Sir Kier Starmer and the Labour party. A cabinet reshuffle was announced.

The Chancellor reveals her Autumn Statement on 26^th November.

Bank of England Deputy Governor Clare Lombardelli said in testimony to MP’s that she expects UK inflation at 3.5-4% for the rest of 2025 and sees increased risk of inflation persistence.

US Non-Farm Payrolls figure stated that the US economy added just 22,000 jobs, less than the 75,000 expected and lower than July’s 79,000. The US JOLTS report also showed that job openings fell to a 10-month low. Both surveys led to increased market confidence in a Federal Reserve rate cut later this month and exacerbated fears about a rise in unemployment and prompted US Treasury yields to fall. Precious metals also continued to rise with both Gold and Silver hitting recent highs. (Silver still has a way to go to match the Silver Squeeze of the 1980’s).

The West looked on at the assembly of several Eastern world leaders in China, including Russian, Indian, North Korean, Turkish and Iranian premiers where a number of items would have been discussed – we would assume the flow of oil and gas from Russia was one of them.

COMPANY NEWS

Ashtead Group, the engineering equipment lessors, announced quarterly rental revenue growth was 2.4% as the company maintained its full-year rental guidance of 0-4%, while increasing both free cash flow and capex forecasts. Management commented that they continued to progress on relisting the business on the NYSE and the move is currently on track for March.

Sanofi released data for its experimental drug for atopic dermatitis which showed that after 24 weeks of treatment, teenage and adult patients who received the drug saw improvements in skin clearance and disease severity at a higher rate than those on the placebo. However, the improvement was less than its existing drug Dupixent and therefore the shares fell. Analysts noted that the efficacy of the drug was equal to rival medicine from Amgen.

Alphabet shares rallied after a federal judge ruled that it can keep its Chrome business, a year after ruling that it held a monopoly in the search market. Apple shares also traded up on the news. Google will be forced to share data with its rivals, but the ruling appears to acknowledge that the competitive landscape has been altered by the arrival of competitors from AI tools like ChatGPT. Amazon also rose after Business Insider reported that it is testing a new AI-powered software.

Broadcom revealed a modest beat, and very impressive growth numbers, but the shares headed up on the back of news of further acceleration in AI revenues and that their “4^th biggest customer” (perhaps Open AI) has gone to over $10bn in orders.  ARM is likely to be the 5th.

Credo, the AI network connection specialists, produced very strong results and guided to 120% year on year growth. Revenue base continues to diversify, and an additional fourth hyperscaler is set to provide over 10% of revenue in the coming quarters.

Salesforce shares fell after beating on earnings and revenue but lowered guidance for the current quarter.

Are we post peak yoga? The results from Lululemon would suggest so. They have attempted to broaden the offering down market with "social and lounge" and have lost their loyal followers. It has hit earnings.

THE SWEENEY EFFECT

We continue to highlight excessive market reactions and find celebrity endorsements a constant theme. American Eagle, the clothing (mainly jeans – “genes”?!) and accessories retailer, announced revenues down 1% over the last quarter, having slid 5% previously, yet the shares rose 25% after its results were announced. American Eagle is, after all, the company that gathered headlines recently over its controversial advertising campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney.

Meanwhile, Dollar Tree, the bargain-price retailer, reported same-store sales growth of 6.5% for its most recent quarter and increased its targets for full-year sales and profits. But it dared to mention tariffs in the earnings call and the shares duly fell 10%. A celebrity is clearly required.

TRAVEL SICKNESS

As students headed back into school from their summer holidays, there was a big profit warning from Jet2. Travel had been holding up well until now. Since Jet2 reported on 9^th July, the later booking trend has become more pronounced. Summer capacity of +8% remains highly skewed to flight-only (+17% vs. +2% package holiday). Considering the later booking pattern and no signs of this changing into winter, Jet2 has reduced winter capacity from 5.8m to 5.6m (albeit up +9% over the year) and plans “to maintain attractive pricing”. Due to the uncertainty, shares in both Ryanair and easyJet also fell.

Whereas GPS specialists, Samsara, which only came to the market in late 2021, headed in the right direction with an excellent set of results, sending the shares 15% higher.

THE WEEK AHEAD

• A big week for markets as we get the US CPI print for August on Thursday as well as the PPI and Initial Jobless Claims.
• Closer to home we hear the German CPI print on Thursday.
• Quarterly results from Oracle, Synopsis, Adobe, Kroger, and the notorious GameStop.

THE WEEK IN HISTORY

1929: After a decade-long bull run, the Dow Jones peaked at 381.17 – a high it wouldn’t reclaim until 1954. Economist Roger Babson famously warned that “a crash is coming”, a move that came to be known as the “Babson Break”.

1988: the SEC files landmark securities fraud charges against Drexel Burnham Lambert and Michael Milken – the power player of the junk-bond era. This marked the beginning of the collapse of a once formidable Wall Street firm.