The Old Man’s Views

Another week in the wonderful world of capital markets, where investors are celebrating record equity prices, governments are borrowing money they haven’t got, central bankers are pretending inflation is manageable, and the Middle East continues doing its best to make oil traders rich and everyone else miserable.

What the hell is going on? For years I’ve been banging on about the direction Europe is travelling, and for years I’ve been told I’m too pessimistic, too cynical, too political and probably too old.

There are times to be aggressive, and there are times to make sure you’re still standing when everyone else discovers they were too aggressive. Right now, I favour the latter. That doesn’t mean hiding under the bed with a tin helmet and a box of baked beans.

It’s been quite a week. Donald Trump went to the United Nations and, depending on your political persuasion, either delivered some uncomfortable home truths or behaved like the headmaster addressing a particularly troublesome school assembly.

I was hoping the markets might start behaving themselves. Fat chance. They appear to have spent the week drinking crude oil, frightening the bond market and arguing over whether artificial intelligence will save humanity or make most of it redundant before lunchtime.

I’m back from holiday, just in time for September – the month when financial markets traditionally stop serving cocktails and start handing out margin calls.

Over the past few months, market narratives have fluctuated wildly. In reality, however, compelling reasons to trade have been relatively thin on the ground – unless you’ve been scalping or jumping in and out on short-term technical signals.

Everything is looking fine, with most equity investors enjoying the past week’s rally. However, there is a lot going on beneath the surface that simply cannot be ignored.
We still live in a world where AI investing and flying rockets dominate the landscape. Until those rockets go silent, we have to expect some turbulent times – and, more importantly, prepare for them.

Everything is looking fine, with most equity investors enjoying the past week’s rally. However, there is a lot going on beneath the surface that simply cannot be ignored.
We still live in a world where AI investing and flying rockets dominate the landscape. Until those rockets go silent, we have to expect some turbulent times – and, more importantly, prepare for them.

Everything is looking fine, with most equity investors enjoying the past week’s rally. However, there is a lot going on beneath the surface that simply cannot be ignored.
We still live in a world where AI investing and flying rockets dominate the landscape. Until those rockets go silent, we have to expect some turbulent times – and, more importantly, prepare for them.

Having started my career as a commodity trader and analyst, trading raw materials has never particularly bothered me. I realise much of our industry’s growth has been driven by the attraction of other instruments, especially those that are easier to trade through online platforms. However, now that commodity CFDs are widely available, I would urge more traders and investors to follow these markets and use them to diversify their portfolios.

I’ve been on the road for the past week, taking care of my old mum in the UK. I thought if I leave the markets alone for six days, I could reasonably expect to return to little more than a slightly different set of prices.

Spain have lifted the World Cup, the final whistle has blown, and traders everywhere are about to enter that dangerous annual period known as “the family holiday”. For the past few weeks, our partners have complained about us watching football every night.

There are weeks when traders carefully study economic data, analyse central-bank speeches and examine every candle on the chart. Then there are World Cup weeks, when half the dealing room is watching football on a second screen and pretending the sudden shout was caused by the bond market.

The first week of July began with markets doing what markets often do when they have decided not to worry: pretending everything was under control.

The first six months of 2026 were not exactly dull, were they? We started January with investors still arguing about inflation, interest rates, overvalued tech, oil risk, and whether Bitcoin was a proper asset or just a very expensive mood swing. By the end of June, the same arguments were still going on – only louder, more emotional, and with a few missiles over the Strait of Hormuz thrown in for good measure.