The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Andrew Gwynne, who said he was stepping down for health reasons that had been aggravated in the last year by the fall-out from leaked messages from a controversial WhatsApp group.
The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Andrew Gwynne, who said he was stepping down for health reasons that had been aggravated in the last year by the fall-out from leaked messages from a controversial WhatsApp group.
Reinhard Krull Germany’s retail sales edged up 0.1% M/M in December 2025, beating market expectations for a 0.2% decline and reversing a marginally revised 0.5% drop in the previous month. Growth was driven by a 2.5% rise in food sales and a modest 0.7% increase in non-food sales. In contrast, online and mail-order sales fell 2.3%, indicating weaker discretionary demand in digital channels. For th...
Reinhard Krull Germany’s retail sales edged up 0.1% M/M in December 2025, beating market expectations for a 0.2% decline and reversing a marginally revised 0.5% drop in the previous month. Growth was driven by a 2.5% rise in food sales and a modest 0.7% increase in non-food sales. In contrast, online and mail-order sales fell 2.3%, indicating weaker discretionary demand in digital channels. For the full year, retail sales increased 2.7%, underscoring a gradual recovery despite a challenging economic backdrop. More on Germany Trump's Tariffs Are Sinking The Eurozone EWG: Germany Stocks Lag As Europe Leads Germany’s inflation rises to 2.1% in January from 1.8% in December 2025 Euro Area GDP rises 0.3% in Q4 Seeking Alpha’s Quant Rating on iShares MSCI Germany ETF
John Lithgow has called JK Rowling’s views on transgender rights “ironic and inexplicable”, saying that backlash to his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter series “upsets me”. Speaking on stage at Rotterdam film festival after a screening of his latest film, Jimpa, the 80-year-old actor was asked about how he felt about Rowling’s views. Rowling serves as an executive pro...
John Lithgow has called JK Rowling’s views on transgender rights “ironic and inexplicable”, saying that backlash to his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter series “upsets me”. Speaking on stage at Rotterdam film festival after a screening of his latest film, Jimpa, the 80-year-old actor was asked about how he felt about Rowling’s views. Rowling serves as an executive producer on the upcoming series, which is being produced by HBO and will be one of the most expensively produced television shows of all time. “I take the subject extremely seriously,” Lithgow told the audience, reported by the Hollywood Reporter. “JK Rowling has created this amazing canon for young people, young kids’ literature that has jumped into the consciousness of society. Young and old people love Harry Potter and the Harry Potter stories. It’s so much about acceptance. It’s about good versus evil. It’s about kindness versus cruelty. It’s deeply felt.” “I find it ironic and somewhat inexplicable that Rowling has expressed such views,” he added. “I’ve read about them, and I’ve never met her. She’s not really involved in this production at all. The people who are re-adapting Harry Potter and turning it into an eight-year-long TV series are remarkable. … These are people I really want to work with.” “It upsets me when people are vehemently opposed to me having anything to do with this,” he added. “But in Potter canon you see no trace of transphobic sensitivity. She has written this meditation of kindness and acceptance. And Dumbledore is a beautiful role.” When Lithgow was announced as Dumbledore, he revealed that a friend with a trans child had sent him a link to an article entitled: “An open letter to John Lithgow: Please walk away from Harry Potter.” “It was a hard decision,” Lithgow said, in Rotterdam. “It made me uncomfortable and unhappy that people insisted I walk away from the job. I chose not to do that.” Variety reported that one audience member expressed their ...
Markets are starting the new trading week with significant sell-offs. All major instruments are losing ground: GOLD, SILVER, NATGAS and OIL.WTI. Stock exchanges are also affected by the declines, while defensive currencies, in this case especially the USD, are performing best on the FX market. In the coming hours, attention will be drawn to, among other things, German retail sales data for Decembe...
Markets are starting the new trading week with significant sell-offs. All major instruments are losing ground: GOLD, SILVER, NATGAS and OIL.WTI. Stock exchanges are also affected by the declines, while defensive currencies, in this case especially the USD, are performing best on the FX market. In the coming hours, attention will be drawn to, among other things, German retail sales data for December, final global PMI readings for industry for January, the US ISM Manufacturing PMI, speeches by central bank representatives – Breeden from the BoE and Bostic from the Fed – as well as the announcement of the US debt refinancing plan and the results of Palantir and NXP Semiconductors. Detailed macro calendar below: Source: xStation Company calendar for the entire week. Source: XTB
Historically, the S&P 500's performance in January is a strong indicator of how it will perform the rest of the year. That's good news for 2026. In January, the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.43%) was up 1.4%. That may not seem like much, but it provides a very powerful indicator of what could happen in the rest of 2026. You may have heard about the theory that equity market returns in the first month of the ye...
Historically, the S&P 500's performance in January is a strong indicator of how it will perform the rest of the year. That's good news for 2026. In January, the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.43%) was up 1.4%. That may not seem like much, but it provides a very powerful indicator of what could happen in the rest of 2026. You may have heard about the theory that equity market returns in the first month of the year can signal how the rest of the year performs. There are a lot of similar signals out there, such as the Santa Claus Rally, that try to predict better times to own stocks. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. The "January Barometer" is particularly interesting because it seems to have some statistical backing and history to support it. Not a 100% success rate, mind you, but enough of a track record that it makes you look twice. Let's take a look at what history tells us over the past 40 years. Of those 40 years, January returns for the S&P 500 were positive 25 times and negative 15 times. In those 25 instances where January was higher, the next 11 months were higher 80% of the time. We're not just talking modest gains for the February-December period, either. On average, the "rest of the year" was about 11% with the median return even higher at over 14%. That brought the average full year return when January was positive to roughly 15%. The last time that January was positive but the next 11 months were negative was 2018. That year featured a quick bear market in the 4th quarter of the year that dragged total year returns negative. Prior to that, you'd have to go back to 2011. In other words, it's a rare occurrence, at least historically speaking. What happens when January is negative? It's a completely different story for the S&P 500. The next 11 months are positive just 73% of the time, with the average gain over that period coming out to just over 6%. Those four instances where January was negative and the rest of the year was negative too were in 2022, 2008, 200...