Good morning from Paul & Graham! Today's report is now finished.
Energy crisis - here are a couple of useful links, which I bookmarked, so I can follow what's going on with energy prices. You might also find them useful -
Trading Economics - this page gives a chart of the UK price of natural gas, plus an excellent short summary at the top, explaining factors behind price movements. As you can see, the price of gas has absolutely plunged recently. I think this is just a spot price though, so might not be reflected in bills, if the supplier has agreed different contracted terms.
Clifford Talbot - this page gives a useful chart (change timeframe to year-to-date) showing the spot wholesale prices for UK electricity & gas. Note the colour coding determines whether the Y-axis is on the left, or the right hand side of the page. This is also encouraging, as the price of electricity for example now looks well below the Govt's price cap. If it stays at that level, or below, then the Govt support measures could end up costing a lot less than initially feared.
Marketwatch - this page is useful, giving the current yield of benchmark 10-year Govt debt (Gilts). They've risen almost in lockstep with US Treasuries, so it's important to remember that the trend is being dictated by international factors (as with so many things right now). The recent mini-budget kerfuffle caused a spike up to c.4.5% yield, which seems to be the level where big margin calls hit pension schemes due to their LDI derivatives. In recent days, the yield has dropped significantly as UK Govt policy has changed from increasing the deficit (hence more bond issuance) with tax cuts, to cancelling most of the mini-budget, and talk of more spending discipline (hence less issuance of new debt). Plus remember the key buyer was the Bank of England, using QE, but that's now stopped.
Do add any interesting links you use (and why you use them) to the reader comments section, I see a couple of people already have, thank you!
Agenda
Paul's Section:
Superdry (LON:SDRY) - thank you and well done to an eagle-eyed reader, Albm7, who spotted yesterday that Superdry's auditor had resigned, leaving a letter that is critical of internal controls. This is very unusual (the last case I recall was…
