This week, Gareth and Jeremy discuss Moody's downgrade of US debt, Donald's big beautiful Bill (yes, that is what it is called), and the bond vigilantes' work at the long end of the yield curve. Jeremy discusses Japan's special place in all this and wonders how the world's monetary authorities can put the long-term inflation genie back in the bottle.

In the UK, inflation and government borrowing were higher than expected, making it a bad week for Rachel Reeves. But at least we have rejoined the EU (well, agreed to agree with them about a few things).

Despite all this, the UK market remained in a decent mood with small and mid-cap stocks outperforming large-cap stocks.

Gareth discusses updates and results from Forterra, IDOX and SDI Group.

Next week, some US Q1 GDP data is widely expected to show a sharp decline in activity.

However, investors' main focus is likely to remain the long end of the bond market and how to avoid the impact of FX and bond volatility.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity.

Gareth and Jeremy discuss the US-China trade deal and Donald's many other activities: investment advice, trade deals, a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, huge win/win deals in the Middle East, and a crackdown on big pharma.

However, although the market has round tripped from the lows of early April, there is lasting damage to financial market confidence from the weaker dollar and stubbornly higher long-term bond yields.

The Saudis traded lower oil prices for US weapons and AI chips to help it turn its energy to power AI data centres.

But, the probability of a US recession has reduced.

The UK economy grew faster than any other G7 economy in Q1, and the UK equity market continued to perform better.

Gareth discusses news from Progressive research clients: Idox announced an acquisition, Gamma Communications gave an AGM update, Vertu Motors released FY 2025 results, which talk of a good start to the year, Nexus Infrastructure released H1 results, which report on the housebuilding recovery progress, and Secure Trust Bank reported a good start to their new financial year.

Looking ahead, we have inflation data from the UK and Japan, both signalling increases, which looks like a particular challenge for Japan. We feel that they should take some advice on how Argentina has coped with its much greater inflation problem over the last 12 months!

Brought to you by Progressive Equity.

This week Jeremy and Gareth discuss a smorgasbord of newsflow... from trade deals to interest rate cuts (or lack of them) and the selection of Maro Itoje as captain of the Lions team.

UK stocks discussed include ZOO Digital and Van Elle, and Jeremy describes the divergent outcomes for Alpha Group and Argentex...two payments/FX trading platforms who have had their resilience tested in recent years, with wildly different results.

Next week will see UK unemployment and GDP data, with US retail sales, inflation and consumer sentiment... watch for an angry Trump.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity.