The OECD urged UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to overhaul the tax system to make it less complex and help turn around Britain’s tepid growth rates. The Paris-based organization said on Thursday that the UK government should tackle distortions in income tax that discourage work, “inefficient and regressive” reliefs in its sales tax and outdated valuations used for property tax. The OE...
The OECD urged UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to overhaul the tax system to make it less complex and help turn around Britain’s tepid growth rates. The Paris-based organization said on Thursday that the UK government should tackle distortions in income tax that discourage work, “inefficient and regressive” reliefs in its sales tax and outdated valuations used for property tax. The OECD called for an “in-depth tax review to make the tax system more efficient and growth-friendly by reducing distortions, closing loopholes, and ending reliefs and exemptions that do not serve economic or social objectives.” It gave the Labour government a slew of recommendations as Prime Minister Keir Starmer struggles to deliver on his manifesto promise to boost GDP growth to the highest in the Group of Seven. Growth cooled to a near standstill in the second half of 2025 and the OECD has previously warned the UK economy will be among the hardest hit by the Iran war. While Reeves has hiked taxes in a bid to shore up the public finances and fund spending increases, the OECD said growth could be lifted by making the UK tax system more efficient. “Parts of the tax system are complex, leading to large compliance costs,” the OECD said in its Foundations for Growth and Competitiveness report. “VAT reliefs are largely inefficient and regressive and property tax is based on outdated valuations. Furthermore, distortions such as kinks in the income tax schedule weaken work incentives.” Economists have long complained that the UK’s tax system is due a major overhaul. Workers face high marginal tax rates when their annual income rises above £100,000 ($134,000) as the personal allowance is withdrawn, discouraging Britons from working and earning more. They have also urged the government to update council tax valuations as the levy is currently based on a property’s value from 1991. FSB’s Bailey Warns Iran War Is Compounding Private Credit Stress UK Private Sector Flatlines as Stagflatio...
alvarez Commodities trader Glencore ( GLCNF ) and Taiwan's state refiner CPC have chartered a tanker each to load Middle Eastern crude for Asia, while vessels in the Gulf are preparing to exit via the Strait of Hormuz, a day after the ceasefire in the U.S.-Iran war, Reuters reported on Thursday. The two-week truce hinges on letting ships pass through the strait, a chokepoint for about 20% of glo...
alvarez Commodities trader Glencore ( GLCNF ) and Taiwan's state refiner CPC have chartered a tanker each to load Middle Eastern crude for Asia, while vessels in the Gulf are preparing to exit via the Strait of Hormuz, a day after the ceasefire in the U.S.-Iran war, Reuters reported on Thursday. The two-week truce hinges on letting ships pass through the strait, a chokepoint for about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments brought to a near standstill by the six-week conflict, sharply driving up global energy prices. Asian refiners rely on the Middle East for more than half their supply of crude and naphtha, feedstocks for fuel and petrochemical production. Taiwanese Economy Minister Kung Ming-hsin told reporters on Thursday that state-owned refiner CPC had booked one tanker in the Gulf to bring some 2 million barrels of oil. "If passage is possible within the next two weeks or so, it can come over," he said. "With these 2 million barrels, given that we use an average of about 150,000 barrels per day, this can provide an additional half month or more of usage. So this will help ease ... the situation." Glencore has provisionally chartered a Suezmax tanker to load from Iraq's Basra Oil Terminal at W860 on the Worldscale industry measure used to calculate freight rates, two shipping sources said. The tanker, capable of holding 1 million barrels of oil, is already in the Gulf, the report added. Glencore's earlier attempt to book a very large crude carrier (VLCC) Asian Lion was not successful, the sources said. Middle East oil producers such as Iraq are ready to restore crude exports once the Strait reopens. Spot VLCC shipping rates on the route, more commonly known as TD3C , have more than doubled to W513 from W230 on February 27, before the war started, LSEG data showed. More on energy, etc. Stocks From Liberation Day To Iran War Commodities: Oil Climbs On Trump Escalation Threat Weather Drops U.S. January Oil Production Oil plunges by most si...
DNY59/E+ via Getty Images I have been covering Innodata ( INOD ) since June last year and have not budged from the Hold rating despite a stellar run from June to November 2025. Even in November , I had highlighted the higher-than defendable valuations as the key gating variable preventing a buy. I had also mentioned forward PS levels of ~4x as when things could be more workable. That has been brea...
DNY59/E+ via Getty Images I have been covering Innodata ( INOD ) since June last year and have not budged from the Hold rating despite a stellar run from June to November 2025. Even in November , I had highlighted the higher-than defendable valuations as the key gating variable preventing a buy. I had also mentioned forward PS levels of ~4x as when things could be more workable. That has been breached, with Innodata correcting almost 33% since then. The purpose of this update is to review whether a below 4x PS valuation automatically qualifies Innodata as a buy. My analysis finds that several factors that were also part of the problem in November still persist - that is, revenue quality still looks uneven and model scalability questions are still unanswered. Hence, despite the valuation reset, I believe Innodata is still a hold. It is a better hold at these levels, but a buy thesis is not compelling enough yet. Changes Since November The biggest change since November is the valuation itself. The forward PS ratio was around 8x at that time, down from ~12x levels in the recent past but still looking expensive. That is now below the 4x mark I had indicated as a zone to consider a buy. Even a valuation of ~2.9x based on 2027 revenue expectations still looks higher than the sector median of ~1.8x. So, despite corrections, this is not outright cheap - at best it can be considered fair to reasonable for Innodata's high growth and AI exposure narrative. Data by YCharts In fact, the high-growth narrative has been further challenged since November, with Q4 2025 revenue growing only ~22% YoY, confirming that the slowdown seen in Q3 was not a one-off. Gross margins have also not shown any signs of breaking out above the 40% mark, levels that were broadly intact even in the pre-AI-narrative era. Revenue Growth YoY - INOD (Seeking Alpha) Data by YCharts The correction since November seems to be driven by a broader sell-off across enterprise software stocks. So, this is mostly mul...
Max Kettner, chief multi-asset strategist at HSBC, examines the relationship between equities and oil in response to the US-Iran ceasefire and sees a reduction in oil prices to near $80 later this year as “good enough” to drive markets. (Source: Bloomberg)
Max Kettner, chief multi-asset strategist at HSBC, examines the relationship between equities and oil in response to the US-Iran ceasefire and sees a reduction in oil prices to near $80 later this year as “good enough” to drive markets. (Source: Bloomberg)
LONDON, April 09, 2026--According to the latest research from Omdia, total shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations in 1Q26 increased by 3.2% year-over-year to 64.8 million units. Notebooks (including mobile workstations) saw a modest year-over-year increase of 2.6% in Q1 to 50.8 million units. Meanwhile, desktops (including desktop workstations) performed slightly better, up 5.4% to 14....
LONDON, April 09, 2026--According to the latest research from Omdia, total shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations in 1Q26 increased by 3.2% year-over-year to 64.8 million units. Notebooks (including mobile workstations) saw a modest year-over-year increase of 2.6% in Q1 to 50.8 million units. Meanwhile, desktops (including desktop workstations) performed slightly better, up 5.4% to 14.0 million units. Growth was supported by vendors and channel partners pulling orders forward ahead o
Now is the time to be bargain-hunting in the crypto sector. Top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) are down anywhere from 20% to 40% for the year, and that means top crypto stocks are also on deep-discount sale. Once the next crypto boom begins, these are the stocks that are going to skyrocket in value. There is no such thing as a guarantee in the crypto mark...
Now is the time to be bargain-hunting in the crypto sector. Top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) are down anywhere from 20% to 40% for the year, and that means top crypto stocks are also on deep-discount sale. Once the next crypto boom begins, these are the stocks that are going to skyrocket in value. There is no such thing as a guarantee in the crypto market, but here are three stocks that could help make you a fortune when the inevitable market rebound begins. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading