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On Wednesday, the Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed that the US will control Venezuelan oil sales “indefinitely”. The next day, President Trump held a roundtable press conference with more than a dozen senior oil executives. While they acknowledged that Venezuela represented an enticing opportunity, the consensus was that significant changes would be needed before they can start investing. Exxon’s Chief Executive, Darren Woods, went as far as to label Venezuela “uninvestable” in its current state…

Early on Saturday morning, the US launched airstrikes on military bases in Caracas before kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his compound. Maduro is now in New York facing an indictment from the Department of Justice accusing him of narco-terrorism, cocaine importation and various weapons charges. Trump has vowed to “run the country” until there is a “proper” transition of power in Venezuela and has also threatened to take similar action against Columbia and Mexico.

At Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Trump claimed US oil giants are ready to rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry…

Released just before the Christmas break, data from the Bureau for Economic Analysis showed US GDP rose from 3.8% to 4.3% in the third quarter of the year. Economists had been expecting growth to slow, and the rate is far higher than expected. Consumer spending rose from 2.5% to 3.5%, and imports continued to decline while exports surged by 7.4%…

Last week we got a perfect hat-trick of interest rate decisions from the Bank of England, European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BoJ).

As expected, particularly after inflation for November was shown to have fallen to 3.2% on Wednesday, the BoE decided to cut the base rate from 4% to 3.75%. However, the vote was tight with four members of the bank’s committee voting against the reduction…

The past 12 months have been a rollercoaster for investors, dominated by inflationary pressures, market volatility and political uncertainty. Despite the headwinds, global markets have delivered positive returns. As we move into 2026, key questions remain: will growth hold, is inflation still a risk, and how will markets respond to the US midterms? Richard Warne, Senior Portfolio Manager at Copia, explores the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Markets sold off in November. Generally, it was driven by concerns over valuations in technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This had a marked negative effect on the US equity market, and because the US represents a large part of global index (over 70% of MSCI World is in the US) it had an impact on the broader global equity index too…