Private equity investors buy into small-to-medium-sized companies, giving them a big injection of cash, often many zillions, and usually looking to sell out their stake with a big profit in a few years time. In recent years they’ve had a lot of money to invest, both the gush outwards (rather than trickle down) from all that ‘Quantitative Easing’ (money-printing) that the Banks of England and other countries have used to supposedly keep our economies from going under; and from very cheap borrowing, with interest rates not far off 0% in most of the developed world. There’s still a wall of money out there, but the bricks are starting to fall out, as borrowing at 4% or more puts a bit more risk into risky investments. A gravy train (with apologies for three metaphors in one paragraph) heading for the buffers?
“Markets in V-mode: vaccine hopes, Biden bounce in play”
It was interesting to look at the winners and losers in last week’s stockmarket Biden Bounce and Vaccine V. Cineworld led the charge, up 50% together with Stagecoach, National Express, Trainline and the airlines, Gym Group and property companies all by more than 30%....
