Investment Management Blog - Montague Capital

Just how well EdF’s announcement of immediate price rises of 17% for electricity and 22% for gas conforms to the Bank of England’s game plan for inflation will be a critical factor in next week’s interest rate decision.  That plan always assumed that inflation would move away from the 2% target before it fell back, […]

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For a better understanding of where inflation is going and what the Bank of England may chose to do about it, the wholesale gas market is a worthwhile subject for observation.  British Gas’ CY08Q2 results revealed that the price it has been paid for its gas supplies to final distributors has fallen 15% over the […]

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If we really want to know what’s happening in the UK retail sector, numbers from the Office of National Statistics are currently requiring far more “massaging” to make them really useful.  No wonder that the list of survey evidence used by the Monetary Policy Committee increases with nearly every formal publication we read.  Having surprised […]

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Just when it seemed that the government’s reputation for sound economic management couldn’t get any worse, its reputation has received another killer blow with reports that the Treasury is considering relaxing the “golden rule” on borrowing in order to make ends meet.  Slower economic growth means that tax revenues are insufficient to fund planned spending.  […]

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Barratt Developments becomes the latest UK housebuilder to add to the UK’s dole queues, laying off 1,200 of its 6,700 workforce yesterday.  But the market was too busy celebrating the company’s successful renegotiation of its banking facilities to notice.  The shares have now risen 72% in the last two days, a savage bear squeeze by […]

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This is the sort of number UK monetary policy doves need to have if they are to counter-attack resurgent hawks bent on hammering home the message that inflation will not be allowed to get a grip.  US non-farm payrolls for June posted the sixth consecutive decline, which, combined with downward revisions for April and May, […]

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