Week Ending 16/05/2025 - Trade deals, Arabian junkets and the UK tops the G7 growth table

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.