In the week in which Lyft, a company which has never made a profit, whose losses rose by 32% to nearly one billion in 2018 and which, according to its management, will not make a profit in the near-term, was listed with an initial valuation of $2.3 billion with its shares rising by 8.7% on the… Read more »
One of the financial sector’s characteristics is a short memory. After about 5-7 years memories, particularly of tough times, begin to fade. New joiners bring their enthusiasm and keenness to do new deals, develop new structures, explore new possibilities. Blockchains, ever more complex algorithms, AI, new paradigms: all are being created and expanded. The future’s exciting. So the surfeit… Read more »
The best single essay on financial misbehaviour was written not by a journalist, academic or former trader, but by a novelist and 25 years ago: The Deficit Millionaires by Julian Barnes, that most pointillist and French of English writers. It is about Lloyds of London, the huge losses it suffered in the early 1990’s and how trusting… Read more »