Was Today's Rally A Fluke or Is There More To Come?

It's an unusual question to ask, but for the past 2 weeks we've had what i like to call a mixed bag when it comes to stock exchanges, especially as we roll into the Summer months and things tend to go a little quiet with investors and traders getting ready for Summer breaks, then as if by magic we get a rally and not in the US, it started in Europe.

Unless you've been off the grid, you cannot escape the fact that the UK is currently divided by the "In" campaign and the "Leave" campaign, but as someone who has played with the exchanges for quite a long time now and when i look at investing i don't tend to play the news, so is today's rally as i termed it on Facebook a last dash for cash before the referendum or is there more good cheer to come even after the results of the referendum?

I'm quite sceptical of the main stream media, well ever since the whole phone hacking and general underhandedness, plus the whole bias in the media, so i don't tend to trade the news myself, but there is clearly two camps of investors and i highlighted this over the weekend, there is investors who stand to gain a lot from an In vote and there is those who stand to gain in an Out vote, but there is the middle investor, who is trading the news and polls, clearly this strategy cannot and will not pay off in the short term.

my own thoughts on how to play the market is simple, when your looking at the stock, look at the company as a whole, look at their history, i always like to think that history will repeat itself and if anything don't play the over subscribed stocks.

The significance of today's rally is that usually the US Stocks rally quite well, but Europe doesn't really do rallies, but today we came out of our comfort zone, something the UK will be doing if it does leave the European Union.

Want To Reduce The Deficit? Workers Need Longer Hours and Less Tax Credits!

An emotive choice of title i'm sure, but as i've been travelling last week, i noticed something at my hometown of Sheffield, South Yorkshire and it's mainly at the train station, but is a trend across all sectors and it's workers are working less hours but still claiming a benefit of some description.

10 years ago when i travelled from the very same station i knew all the people who worked at the station by name, i would chat with them and i knew their interests, hobbies, general stuff we learn about people. But now it's completely different, the same people still work at the station, but in the last 4 weeks i've only seen the people whom i knew well, perhaps once or twice.

I don't have nothing against new faces, but for a company such as Stagecoach Group to be able to take on more employees whilst still having half full trains seemed a bit of mystery until the Autumn Statement.

The deficit on this nation is expanding not because we have more unemployment, but because we have more people claiming tax credits to supplement their incomes, so they're working less hours and still need government assistance.

It doesn't mean these employees are unproductive, it means that generally the governments attempts to get people off welfare payments has meant that those who are unproductive have joined the labour market, thus lowering the working hours and ability of already established employees from working effectively.

Welfare Reforms have worked somewhat, unemployment is down, but it's time to look at the psychology of how those who have been asked to join the labour market think, some people whom i talk to have got it into their minds that all they have to do is work 16 hours per week and they can then claim tax credits to supplement their income, unfortunately this is unsustainable in the long term.

To look at the long term effects of this mentality, the government would still have to keep borrowing to support the new welfare claimants in the forms of tax credits.

At the moment the unproductive that have joined the workforce need to be enthused to look at working longer hours as a good thing, longer hours and your paid at an hourly rate means you can earn more money than the state can pay you, you get to socialise with people and you have money to live and enjoy things.

The same can be said for companies that employ these practices, giving workers longer hours benefits the company greatly, if your in the service sector, people see the same person more frequently and that is comforting to the customer, they gain a rapport with the employee and this in turn can lead to better customer service, experience and all round well being of the relationship between employee and customer.

The flipside is that customer service and productivity is broken when we employ these practices as employees become stressed on how they are going to manage their income, thus giving a less than favorable experience to the customer who might use the services of another company.

Sometimes Less Is More

Sometimes in this world less is more, Men prefer their women to wear a minimal amount of make up looking more natural, some people like to live a minimalist lifestyle in their homes.

So why don't we live in a minimalistic world when it comes to taxation and corporate tax?

With the budget coming up on Wednesday and the media jumping up and down like a kid who loves playing on his trampoline, Chancellor George Osborne needs to get rid of his fears on taxation.

I can be quite honest in saying that Wednesday for George Osborne it won't be the baptism of fire he thinks it's going to be, Since taking office in 2010 George Osborne has learnt a lot about Economics and Finance, but as a politician he is still frightened to take some initiative on taxation, sure personal taxation has got a lot better and so it should be, but Corporate Tax is somewhat to be desired, Sometimes less is more in the world of business and corporations, less corporate tax means a company is more likely to stay in a country that gives them incentives to stay in the country.

When it comes to Corporate Tax it's a race to the bottom, the cheaper more value for money you're corporate tax is, the more you're going to get from it. Higher rates of corporate tax only give you a small pool of companies and those companies cannot shoulder the responsibility for employing people, the more companies you have the more the responsibility is shared, so having low corporate tax is attractive to companies that want to set up shop in you're country, the minimal amount of corporate tax will allow them to employ more people, thus taking more people of unemployment programmes

We have all the mechanisms in place, a low currency which was advocated by me, which we got, a low currency makes us attractive to invest in as a nation, we have extremely low interest rates, great for mortgage holders and those who can borrow from banks, we just need the corporation tax to come down to around the same par as Ireland and we're on easy street somewhat.

George Osborne got his baptism of fire 2 years ago, when colleagues of mine took the initiative on behalf of Economists and decided to shout Osborne Out in Parliament, From that budget day to now, i'm confident and have more confidence in George Osborne as Chancellor than i ever have.

The best thing about George Osborne is he isn't a Economist or Financier, so he was a blank slate for learning our methods and we've benefited from it.

With just over a year to go before the next General Election, we ask the Chancellor one more time and that is to reform corporate tax and allow more businesses into this country and to allow our existing businesses to grow.

To Rig A Energy Market or To Not Rig A Energy Market, That Is The Question? (Part 1)

Everyone hold your left hand up if you think Energy Market Rigging is a good thing?

Now everyone who disagrees hold your right hand up if you think Energy Market Rigging is a bad thing?

You should have decided by now whether you want a rigged energy market or not.

Let's look at both sides of a argument that will rage until the end of time or at least until fossil fuels run out.

If you fix the pricing of energy it looks like a good thing doesn't it, on paper and i stress on paper having a flat fee for natural gas and electricity is a winner, especially when you want votes for a election. The real problem with energy market rigging is that it takes out any level of choice and competitiveness out of the marketplace. Also you take out the possibility of energy companies passing on savings when they purchase their energy cheaper which is dictated by market prices.

The market prices are predicted in a futures market not a equity market, energy companies work on the future prediction of stockpiles of gas and raw materials to generate electricity. So if you're wondering why your gas or electricity bill rises when the company is purchasing it's electricity at a lower price is because the prediction of future stockpiles might be lower than expected, which in turn generates demand and will push the prices up in the commodity market.

British Thermal Unit (BTU), MBTU, MMBTU

A standard unit of measurement used to denote both the amount of heat energy in fuels and the ability of appliances and air conditioning systems to produce heating or cooling. A BTU is the amount of heat required to increase the temperature of a pint of water (which weighs exactly 16 ounces) by one degree Fahrenheit. Since BTUs are measurements of energy consumption, they can be converted directly to kilowatt-hours (3412 BTUs = 1 kWh) or joules (1 BTU = 1,055.06 joules). A wooden kitchen match produce approximately 1 BTU, and air conditioners for household use typically produce between 5,000 and 15,000 BTU.

MBTU stands for one million BTUs, which can also be expressed as one decatherm (10 therms). MBTU is occasionally used as a standard unit of measurement for natural gas and provides a convenient basis for comparing the energy content of various grades of natural gas and other fuels. One cubic foot of natural gas produces approximately 1,000 BTUs, so 1,000 cu.ft. of gas is comparable to 1 MBTU. MBTU is occasionally expressed as MMBTU, which is intended to represent a thousand thousand BTUs.

Natural Gas is measured in USD/MMbtu, the piece above explains what MMBTU means which is a unit of measurement for natural gas. The USD means United States Dollars, which is the currency natural gas is bought in.

For most people Natural Gas is the most and widely used commodity that is used in your home, of course if you use heating oil that is a refined product, you will pay a different price. People in rural communities use heating oil as they don't have means of piped gas to their homes that is for some rural communities.

There is a lot to go through before you can even approach this argument, another factor to look at is world events, world events can affect the price of natural gas considerably, especially if there is a issue where natural gas is being drilled. At the moment we have two options to drill for natural gas, offshore and inshore which is more commonly known as "Fracking". Where stockpiles are falling in offshore drilling, inshore drilling keeps stockpiles topped up. If we alone relied on offshore drilling for natural gas the price would be sky high as offshore stockpiles are in decline.

Electricity is generated in a number of ways, Wind Power, Coal Powered Plants, Biomass Plants, Tidal Power, to name just a few.

Most Electricity generated in the UK is by Coal or Wind Power and we've just started moving to Biomass.

Physical Energy such as electricity can be bought on commodity exchange such as ICE (Intercontinental Exchange), perhaps the biggest trading house for commodities.

Naturally when buying electricity from a trading house demand and supply will dictate prices, some are fixed prices on a monthly contract others are traded differently.

The general public isn't made aware of all these factors that have been mentioned in this post and we're not anywhere near debating whether a fixed energy market or not is viable, so i will let you digest this information in this post and part 1 and will see you in part 2.

Should Cities Be Stress Tested?

It has been budget day for Hull City Council and it hasn't gone too good. We will have a 1.9% Council Tax increase and 450 jobs will be axed.

it was a couple of years ago i remember the same tale of woe being spewed across the local newspaper and my advice is still the same, when it comes to axing jobs you've got to keep your oranges and let your lemons go, in short, the people that aren't pulling their weight.

Opposition groups in the Council did appeal for a freeze on Council Tax, it wasn't to be and Hull City Council don't seem to have a strong point for finance, however other Council's in the region seem to be able to freeze their council tax, but why?

You have to look at the raw economics, compared to say the East Riding, there is comparative more wealth there than in Hull, demographically one ward in Hull is considered to house it's richest residents, where the East Riding has more wards where it's wealthiest reside.

Having more wealthy people does increase your chances of being able to recoup taxes, but there are social issues that need to be addressed. Hull City Council also needs to to actually recoup taxes and rent arrears from it's housing stock, there is one thing to be compassionate and Hull does have that, but there is also taking the piss.

The Council is there to govern the city, not to be people's friends and this is where the line is blurred between compassion and just turning a blind eye. Councillors in Hull need to be more confident in their abilities, i've met a few of them and compared to my own skills which i'm confident about, some of them don't seem to be as confident.

With the fact that Hull does actually receive more money than some of the neighbouring authorities in the region, the city should be able to manage quite well. This might be causing some of the problems in the Council, Councillors that just aren't confident to make the big decision and would rather take the easy option.

It makes a compelling case for cities to be stress tested, can they hold up to a series of tests and if they can't and are clearly having trouble balancing the books, then there should be support to get the books back on track. The ECB (European Central Bank) has been issuing stress tests to banks in case of financial crisis.

Stress testing Hull might just come up with some pleasant results and it might just be a case of adjusting some of the services. Not all the time do stress tests result in job losses, just a bit of tweaking.

We're Getting A Audi!

In the immortal words of Peter Griffin from Family Guy, "Sweet, I'm getting a Audi", of course in the episode, Peter wasn't getting a Audi, but a severe audit from the IRS.

Yesterday our Chancellor George Osborne didn't really need his flak jacket on, with the UK's GDP figures at 0,3%, not the best GDP figures in the world and lets face it we could do better. It's not too long now until the IMF will decide to audit our economy, it would seem that the Austerity Measures or the speed of these Austerity Measures are what are hampering growth for us, did George cut too fast and too deep?

It would seem George might have and let's have look at why this has happened, it stems from a disease that is going through our politicians of having a one track mind a delusion that something bad will happen if we don't keep cutting. Nothing will actually happen if we slow down the rate of cuts, it would take a lot to send the country bankrupt and let's face it the last government tried this and we were flexible enough to bounce back.

Yesterday's figures showed that mining was a key industry, but the mining companies don't actually have to rely on the UK's economy for their own growth and profits, they can use several markets to make their money.

Does our economy need a audit from the IMF, I would say it does and George Osborne needs to listen to people and not those who can curry his favour with flashy events, George Osborne should also take himself away from the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250, the companies on those two markets don't actually have to rely on the UK economy to profit and grow, the companies listed on both indexes tend to trade on multiple markets.

However the FTSE A-Z generally has a lot more companies that are UK based and it might be worthwhile promoting this market for growth and investment, the companies listed on the FTSE A-Z are far more likely to create jobs when they're profiting and are more likely to expand their business, after all they want to be listed on the FTSE 100 and 250 one day, as the FTSE 100 and 250 are a measurement of the top performing 100 and top 250 companies in the UK.

Never Trust A Man Who's Eyebrows Don't Match The Colour Of His Hair!

Saturday Morning and i can feel a bit smug, for months i had been campaigning on pro growth and please forgive me, i didn't realise how far reaching Social Media can be.

So i wake up to the news that the IMF has decided to look at George Osborne's Austerity Measures and the fact that he might have cut too deep too quickly. Result for me and everyone who campaigned with me.

Saturday evening we see on Sky News that former Chancellor Alistair Darling is talking rubbish about how he knew back in 2010 that Austerity Measures wouldn't work. I see history repeating itself, Alistair Darling didn't know whether the Austerity measures would work or not, all i will say is thank god for data mining, all he was saying is what i had said back in 2010 that Austerity Measures were a one shot deal only good for a year for short term gain. I had actually written it on my at the time very popular blog at the time.

God bless data mining and God bless Politicians who can't think for themselves and remember if you repost this blog post, you have to give credit to me!!