Weekly Roundup – Tuesday 3rd September

Propelle Events – What’s Next?

In case you hadn’t seen our announcement last week, our next webinar on Thursday 26th September is all about “Investing Made Simple: Unlocking the Power of ISAs”. We’re here to show you that investing really doesn’t have to be complicated, but you do have to get some key bits right. This webinar isn’t one to be missed! Propelle founder (and ex Goldman Sachs wealth adviser) Ayesha Ofori will be making a return to webinar hosting to deliver this one for us. So if you have any questions for Ayesha on ISA’s or how to make your investing more simple but more effective, this is the webinar for you!

And if you miss any webinars, as a Propelle Pro member, you can always check back.

BTS at Propelle

This week has been quietly productive, in preparation for our big launch in the coming weeks. As a team, we’re scattered from London to Bristol to parts of France, so we have weeks where the slack huddle is everything for our communication. Thankfully, we’ve got some great comedians in the team who are always up for a giggle. Would you like to know more about the personalities who are behind building Propelle? Let us know!

Last Week’s Major Indexes

Before we dive in…

Indices are lists of major sections of a market. Basically, they give a gauge of the health of a certain financial market. Often when the UK market is strong, the FTSE 100 index (measuring the 100 biggest companies on the London Stock Exchange) will keep moving up. Conversely when markets are bad they fall. You’ll see below the value of the index, as well as how much it changed last week, with a percentage.

FTSE 100 (UK): -8,316.85 -0.34%

S&P 500 (US): 5,648.40 +0.15%

Euro Stoxx 50 (Europe): 4,950.96 +0.94%

Nasdaq (US): 17,713.62 -0.86%

Dow Jones (US):  41,563.08 +0.55%

Source: Yahoo Finance

N.B these figures are accurate for market close on Friday 30th August 2024

Mini Market Deep Dive

UK property ‘for sale’ listings at a seven year high

It’s fair to say that it’s been a rough time for property in the UK, with the combination of high interest rates affecting mortgages and a general dampening of property prices. As the Bank of England dropped interest rates for the first time just last month, there has been a flurry of property activity, which may be music to many property investors’ ears. However, there is a warning: this increase of supply might not mean that prices shoot up for the sellers out there. Mortgages have only dropped slightly and buyers, particularly in the south of England, are reportedly still looking to negotiate hard.  

Source: Financial Times

Little Learn of the week

Monopoly

We’re not talking about the boardgame, but the position that Google has been deemed to officially hold over the search engine sector. When a company has a monopoly over a sector, it usually means that they’re the only viable competitor. Whilst this sounds ideal for the company, it can mean consumers lose out, as they are able to dictate prices that can become unfair. With a lack of competition, they can also become lazy with innovation, again hurting consumers. As a result, in many cases having a monopoly can be illegal, which means certain acquisitions that result in large companies dominating a sector, can be blocked (e.g. when equity crowdfunding platforms in the uK Seedrs and Crowdcube wanted to merge – it was blocked). It may well be that Google (or the parent company Alphabet) is forced to break up its operations in light of this ruling. Given that the majority of investment portfolios around the globe have some exposure to Google, the way in which they do it, and crucially how the companies continue to make a profit, will be key to maintaining the strength that has been seen over the last decades. How will this affect Google longterm? What might be the impact on its share price? We’re watching closely.

Stat / Chart of the Week

$32.5 billion

This is how much revenue Nvidia is expected to earn in the third quarter of 2024. Whilst it might sound a lot to us regular humans, it’s actually less than analysts had expected, which caused their shares to fall. Nvidia is a big deal in the AI world. They make the chips that underpin a lot of the AI developments. As a result, their share price has skyrocketed over the last few years, as their profits have consistently climbed. 

Source: Bloomberg

Fear & Greed Chart

The Fear & Greed Index is a way to gauge stock market movements and whether stocks are fairly priced. The theory is based on the logic that excessive fear tends to drive down share prices, and too much greed tends to have the opposite effect. It’s made up of seven different indicators that measure some aspect of stock market behaviour. 

This matters to us in the UK because it helps us to understand where general sentiment of the US market sits, which is often closely tied to the movements of other global stock markets, including the UK’s FTSE 100.

The chart remained at exactly the same level as last week, sitting in a comfortable neutral position at 52.

Source: CNN

Q&A of the week

Where our members ask us any questions they have. Big or small. Complex or not. We’re here to help.

What is the October budget that the PM spoke about this week and will it affect me?

“Every October the Chancellor of the Exchequer (currently Rachel Reeves- the first woman ever to hold the post- go gal!) will make a budget announcement. This usually includes any forecasted changes to taxes as well as an overview of the government’s financial plans for the next six to twelve months. As we’ve got a new government in place, there is some anticipation of the upcoming budget on October 30th, as it’s their first chance to reveal any changes and their plans. With the announcement, there are big fears that taxes could be raised, which (bad news alert) will likely affect all of us, if carried out. Some rumours suggest that it may be capital gains taxes in particular that are impacted, which may drive some investors to sell early, to avoid higher rates of tax. Of course, these are only rumours – tax is unique to every situation and if you’ve got any doubts, speaking to a qualified adviser might be wise. And so far, they are only rumours, none of us have a crystal ball, the big thing to watch out for on the announcements are the wobbles in market confidence as well as your investments. Hold tight!“