Weekly Espresso

The Federal Reserve, Bank of England (BoE), European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) all voted to keep interest rates unchanged last week.

Fed board members now expect US inflation to reach 2.7% by the end of the year, up from December’s prediction of 2.4%. Regarding the impact of the war in Iran, Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, cautioned “We just don’t know what the effects” will be…

Various attempts to try and counter rising oil prices helped keep the price of oil below $100 a barrel in the early stages of last week. On Monday, South Korea and Thailand said they would set limits on fuel prices. All 32 members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to release a record 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves. Despite this being more than double…

The price of oil shot up above $100 a barrel for the first time since July 2022 when commodity markets opened at midnight. Energy sites and fuel depots in Iran were bombed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) this weekend, covering Tehran in thick plumes of black smoke. In response, a spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) threatened attacks against energy facilities in Gulf states and said, “If you can tolerate oil at more than $200 per barrel, continue this game.” According to reports, the US are unhappy about how wide-ranging the IDF’s strikes were, marking the first significant US-Israeli disagreement since the conflict began…

On Saturday, the US and Israeli forces launched strikes across Iran targeting key security and political targets. President Trump announced the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei later that day. Airstrikes have continued across the country since, and, despite the loss of forty senior commanders, the Iranians have continued retaliating by bombing targets in Israel and the Gulf. Unlike last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump expects the current campaign to go on for “four weeks or less”.

At least three ships were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz this weekend and the important waterway is effectively at a standstill. 20% of the world’s oil and gas are shipped through Hormuz…

UK unemployment reached its highest since the pandemic at 5.2% in the final quarter of last year, above the 5.1% economists were forecasting. The jobless rate among 18–24 year olds continued to rise, climbing to 14% as young people bear the brunt of the hiring slowdown. The market is now pricing in two UK interest rate cuts this year to 3.25%…

Fresh fears over new AI innovations hit the UK and US wealth management sectors last week. On Monday, US startup, Altruist unveiled a new AI driven tax planning tool which they claim can “produce fully personalised tax strategies… in minutes.” The latest feature from their Hazel AI platform can supposedly generate personalised tax strategies…