Good morning.

These seems to be a lot of turmoil & uncertainty at the moment, what with Brexit, and the associated sharp movements in forex. Then more recently another appalling terrorist attack on France. On top of that, we also saw what seemed to be an attempted coup by a faction of the military in Turkey on Friday night, with considerable bloodshed.

It seems to be the case that we're just having to get used to a more dangerous world - no level of security could be high enough to prevent every would-be attacker. It seems to me that attackers are fitting a pattern - loners, disillusioned with life, easily led, attracted to extremist ideologies, that are being radicalised on the internet. Our counter-measures, on top of improved security, surely need to be more covert surveillance, primarily of the internet activity of "at risk" people. Plus of course, finding, and imprisoning the people doing the radicalising.

Certainly the market seems to be becoming increasingly immune to geopolitical events. Although I can't help feeling that, after the strong recent rebound, this might be a good point to take some money off the table perhaps? Or maybe to hedge longs with an index put option, or index short (but only if you really know what you're doing, in terms of managing the risk).

I'm also becoming increasingly worried about what looks to be a looming Italian banking crisis, with some alarming statistics coming from good sources on Twitter, about the very high level of non-performing loans.


ARM Holdings (LON:ARM)

Recommended acquisition of ARM by Softbank - Counter-acting the gloom today, is remarkable news of what is apparently the largest ever investment in the UK by an Asian firm. Japan's Softbank is offering 1700p per ARM share, in an agreed cash takeover bid.

That's a 43% premium, and values ARM at £24.3bn. Remarkable stuff, and congratulations to holders of the stock.

Also note the stated intentions of the acquirer;



578c96602cb88ARM_highlights.PNG



It should of course be borne in mind that acquirers do not always actually do what they previously stated an intention to do! So a bold statement of supporting & increasing UK investment & jobs would certainly help the deal go through without the Government putting any obstacles in the way.

However, if the above quotes are taken at face value, then…

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

Already have an account?
Login here