Karen Newton, Business and Wealth Strategy - Deciphering The Economy

  Why Short-Term Moves Don’t Change the Long-Term Case It’s been a while since I’ve written a market commentary, and gold and silver felt like the right place to return. Today we’re seeing something that often confuses newer investors: gold is down again , while silver has edged slightly higher . Add in political headlines, including the latest nominee announcement from Donald Trump  and it’s easy for people to assume something has changed . In reality, this is exactly how precious metals behave during periods of uncertainty. The Political Trigger — Not the Real Driver Whenever a major political figure signals a shift in economic, monetary, or regulatory direction, markets react first and think later. Nominees linked to: tighter fiscal discipline looser monetary policy or challenges to central bank independence can all cause short-term repositioning in gold and silver. Traders adjust. Profits get taken. Algorithms do what algorithms do. But political appoin...

  At first glance, tariffs, wars and extreme weather appear to be completely unrelated events. One is political. One is geopolitical. One is environmental. Yet when you step back and look beyond the headlines, they all expose the same weakness — over-reliance on fragile global systems . In recent years, global supply chains have been stretched, tested, and in many cases broken. What once looked efficient has revealed itself to be brittle. And every time disruption hits — whether through trade restrictions, conflict, or natural disaster — the same question resurfaces: How resilient is a country when external systems fail? The answer increasingly points to one place: the strength of its domestic economy . The Illusion of Global Stability For decades, globalisation promised lower costs, faster production, and seamless trade. Businesses optimised for efficiency, not resilience. Governments assumed systems would always work because they always had. But efficiency removes slack from ...

 Most people don’t fail to change because they lack effort. They fail because they never stop to decide what they’re actually building toward. It’s easy to move through life reacting to circumstances, to pressure, to whatever feels urgent in the moment. Days turn into years, and before long, people find themselves somewhere they never consciously chose. The future doesn’t arrive by accident. It’s shaped quietly, long before you get there. When you look ahead, really look, what do you see? Not a fantasy. Not a highlight reel. But a life that feels steady, intentional, and aligned with the way you want to live. For many, 2025 was a difficult year. Financial strain, uncertainty, and constant change took their toll. If things didn’t turn out the way you hoped, that doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’ve reached a point where a different decision is required. Real change doesn’t begin with resolutions. It begins with clarity. Clarity about what matters. Cla...

 As we approach the end of the year, many people naturally begin reflecting on their finances. They review what they saved. What they spent. What they meant to do but didn’t quite get around to. And for many, investing sits firmly in that final category. Recent figures show that 61% of savers now find investing confusing , up sharply from a decade ago. Among women, that figure rises to 75% . At the same time, people are saving more than ever yet a large proportion still avoid investing altogether. That combination should give us pause. Because if access to information were the answer, confusion should be falling not rising. The real issue isn’t risk — it’s education Investing is rarely taught in schools. Saving is encouraged. Spending is warned against. Debt is discussed, often fearfully. But investing? It’s treated as something “advanced”, complex, or only suitable for experts. So people grow up believing: They need specialist knowledge They need perfect ...

A quote from Michael Saylor did the rounds recently:  “We sold $1.5B of stock backed by $500M of Bitcoin We bought back $1.5B of Bitcoin, capturing a billion-dollar gain in the arbitrage.” At first glance, it sounds confusing.  At second glance, it sounds impossible.  And at third glance, many assume it must simply be Bitcoin “going up”. It wasn’t. This wasn’t about predicting price. It was about understanding where the market was mispricing value .  Before we go further: two simple definitions Let’s strip the jargon away first. What is a premium ? A premium exists when something is selling for more than the value of what’s underneath it . For example: If an asset is worth £100  But people are willing to pay £150 for access to it That extra £50 is the premium People often pay premiums for: Convenience Familiarity Simplicity Or because something is easier to buy What is arbitrage ? Arbitrage is simply: Buying somethi...

December always feels quiet. Markets slow. People turn their attention to family, food, and a well-earned pause at the end of the year. But economic cycles don’t stop just because the calendar does. They continue to move, often most quietly right before a shift. Those who have lived through more than one cycle know this pattern well. Big changes rarely arrive with sirens. They arrive with subtle signals: tired consumers, shorter holidays, rising costs that feel manageable… until they aren’t. This is where we are now. Not in crisis, but in transition. Why 2026 Is Being Talked About Quietly By the time headlines start shouting “crash,” the real opportunities are already gone. The wealth transfer doesn’t happen during the chaos, it happens because of the preparation done before it. 2026 sits at the convergence of multiple long-running trends: debt cycles, interest rate pressure, demographic shifts, and technological acceleration. None of this is new. What’s different this time is ...

For more than four years, Strategy Inc. — formerly MicroStrategy — has been the most visible corporate symbol of Bitcoin conviction. Under Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, the company built the largest Bitcoin treasury in the world and redefined itself not around software, but around a balance sheet strategy. That move reshaped market expectations around corporate treasury management and challenged the traditional opinion that cash is king. Now, as Strategy faces the possibility of being removed from major stock indices, a larger, more structural conversation is emerging and it stretches far beyond one company or one cryptocurrency. This moment forces us to ask a more provocative question: Are corporations truly free to decide how they preserve their value — or is the era of independent balance-sheet strategy coming to an end? Why Index Threats Matter — Not Just to Strategy, but to Global Markets If index providers decide that a company holding a significant portion of its asset...

Silver is shaping up to be one of the strongest-performing assets of the year, and this week the cracks in the supply chain are becoming impossible to ignore. Prices are rising, demand is accelerating, and both the manufacturing and investment sectors are quietly running into shortages. While the headlines focus on gold, silver is quietly building the far more interesting story. Industrial demand is at record highs. Silver isn’t just a precious metal—it’s a critical industrial material. Solar panels, EV batteries, medical tech, electronics, and emerging AI hardware all depend on it. This demand isn’t cyclical; it’s structural. Governments worldwide are pushing green energy and electrification, and the knock-on effect is a continuous drawdown of global silver reserves. Meanwhile, supply isn’t keeping up. Mine output has been flat for years, and several major producers have warned of tighter supply ahead. Refiners are reporting delays, and investment-grade silver—coins and bars—is ex...

 This week’s UK Budget has created more questions than answers, particularly after the OBR’s latest figures revealed a £4 billion credit rather than the widely discussed fiscal “black hole.” The contrast between the government’s narrative and the underlying numbers has caused understandable confusion. Rather than focusing on the political noise, this commentary looks at what really matters: how financial markets may interpret the situation when they open next week . In moments like this, investors don’t react to headlines — they react to signals. What the OBR Numbers Actually Showed The initial expectation earlier in the autumn was a significant funding shortfall. However, the OBR’s updated pre-Budget forecast showed a small fiscal surplus. This sharp difference between expectations and actual figures has fuelled much of the current uncertainty. For investors, the concern is not about which interpretation is “right,” but that conflicting narratives create instability . When d...

Side hustles used to be a bonus. A way to earn a little extra, pay off a bill, or save for something special. Not anymore. According to the Daily Mail, one in four people now has a side hustle , yet the average income works out to just £6.60 per hour  barely half of the national average wage of £12.21. And that statistic tells us everything we need to know about the state of the economy. People aren’t juggling two or three jobs because they want to.  They’re doing it because the cost of living has climbed faster than wages, inflation has eaten into savings, and financial stability feels further away than ever. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: The problem isn’t the side hustle. It’s the way the side hustle is built. Most people choose side hustles that: rely on trading time for money offer very little scalability depend entirely on personal output create more stress, not freedom Selling second-hand clothing, freelancing, content creation, bas...

When the headlines turn bleak, history always repeats itself. And right now, the signals are flashing bright red. Corporate giants are wobbling.  Governments are overstretched.  Unemployment is rising quietly in the background.  Commercial real estate is cracking under vacant offices and collapsing valuations.  Corporations like Blackrock, in recent years, posted the largest corporate loss in history blaming a sudden drop in investor activity. That alone tells you where confidence really is. Meanwhile, analysts estimate that 28,000 UK businesses are on the verge of collapse , with similar patterns emerging across Europe. These are not isolated events. They are symptoms of an economy running out of road. And when this happens? People return to the one strategy that has worked in every major downturn: Be Your Own Provider. Cottage industries, once seen as old-fashioned are becoming one of the smartest responses to unstable times. Why? They’re low-cost ...

The financial headlines are quietly echoing 2007 again — rising subprime exposure, this time not in housing, but in car loans, credit cards, and corporate debt . Barclays, for example, has heavy exposure through auto finance and consumer credit, while at the same time taking on major borrowing to buy assets. On the surface, everything looks stable — employment figures are holding and markets remain calm. But underneath, debt quality is deteriorating . More borrowers are defaulting, and the secondary lenders feeding these loans are tightening terms. It’s the same story told a different way: when credit expands faster than income, cracks appear. The subprime problem isn’t just about bad loans; it’s about systemic dependency on borrowed money . The banks profit while the public absorbs the risk. And when markets tighten, the ripple effect always lands hardest on ordinary households and small investors who trusted “safe” institutions to manage their savings responsibly. It's not just...

 When governments stop paying their workers, economies don’t just pause — they fracture. At the start of October 2025, the U.S. government entered another budget standoff, triggering a partial shutdown that left 1.4 million federal employees either furloughed or working without pay. The cause? Congress failed to agree on a spending package before the fiscal deadline. While the political headlines focused on partisan blame, the deeper question is far more structural: How does one of the world’s largest economies run out of money — again? Why the Money “Ran Out” In the U.S., federal agencies can’t spend without congressional approval. Each year, lawmakers must pass 12 appropriations bills that fund everything from border control to national parks. If they don’t, operations legally grind to a halt. This year, sharp divisions over defence spending, foreign aid, and deficit control led to a funding lapse. Without an approved budget or a temporary extension (known as a continuing reso...

 The optimism that surrounded last year’s general election is fading fast. Many of the business leaders who publicly backed Labour’s call for “change” are now grappling with the harsher reality of their decisions - rising costs, shrinking margins, and a fragile consumer base. According to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) , business insolvencies continue to climb, while new business formation has slowed sharply. Supermarkets are reporting profit margins as low as 3–4%, and even large service companies are cutting back investment to protect cash flow. The hope was that political stability would unlock growth. Instead, a disasterous fiscal policy, high borrowing costs, and wage inflation have combined to create a squeeze at every level of the economy.  For business owners, this translates to higher operating expenses.  For employees, it means fewer hours, frozen pay, and increasing job insecurity. With another budget on the horizon, few expect relief. The reality i...

 According to the latest figures from the UK Insolvency Service , more than 2,000 businesses went into insolvency last month — a clear indication that financial pressure is now spreading across multiple sectors. Rising business failures often precede rising unemployment, and together these indicators reinforce growing concerns that the UK could be entering a deeper recessionary phase. The chart below highlights how insolvencies have accelerated since mid-2023, reflecting the impact of higher interest rates, reduced consumer spending, and tightening credit conditions. Source: Insolvency Service, © Crown copyright. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Data available from the UK Insolvency Service Rising Unemployment — The Next Phase of the Cycle When business closures rise, job losses are never far behind. Recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that unemployment has started to edge higher over the same perio...