An under-rated risk for western economies is that in pushing back against the centralisation of state power under the Health Crisis, voters will unintentionally now allow an even greater grab of power by different parts of the state under the guise of A Climate Crisis.

Back in the 1990s a colleague used to pronounce on the annual “Red Glasses Award’ designed to highlight the most egregious examples of rent extraction from gullible management teams for corporate ‘rebranding’.

Our good friends at Redburn alerted us to the fact that the S&P 500 Equal weighted index made a new all time closing high this week, which we thought made a good occasion to revisit the relationship between the Equal Weighted and the Market Cap weighted S&P500. as shown in this long term Chart.

While we continue to puzzle over official pronouncements on the pandemic, markets are nevertheless thinking about growth, inflation and asset allocation. One of the issues challenging asset allocators in particular at the moment is whether or not there has been a strategic rather than just a tactical shift in Value versus Momentum.

Way back in 2010 – like before the Ipad – a computer programmer used Bitcoin to buy a Pizza. The cost? 10,000 Bitcoin. Yes, 10,000. That is $630m at today’s exchange rate. That’s some pizza.