Ross Clark

It is one thing for western companies, funds, investment trusts and others to promise to divest from Russian assets. But what if the Russian authorities won’t let you? The Moscow stock market has failed to open for a fifth day running. Prior to its closure, it had already plummeted by a third after the invasion

I’m no apologist for oligarchs, whether they be from Russia or anywhere else. I have been writing for years about how dirty money was flooding into London’s property market, helping to price out ordinary people who just want a home. The government should have taken action decades ago to prevent kleptocrats from laundering their money

The price of Brent crude exceeded $112 a barrel this morning. There is, as yet, no interruption in supply from Russia, nor any ban on buying their oil (save for in Canada) – but western companies are reported to be exercising a voluntary boycott. Either that, or they are sceptical of whether their orders will

As with Covid-19 it will take time for the full consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to become apparent. But one unexpected impact is already becoming clear: that on air freight. Ukraine, it turns out, occupies a niche at the very heavy end of the industry. Ukrainian company Antonov manufactures the world’s largest transport

You may never have heard of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications — or at least not by its full name. Even if you had you may have mistaken it for a fairly inconsequential trade body that holds rather dull conferences in hotel function rooms in places like Frankfurt.  Yet it finds itself at

Don’t be fooled by the pictures that will shortly start to emerge of traders apparently tearing their hair out against of backdrop of red screens. A proper crisis is exactly what Wall Street traders want — to provoke yet another stimulus package, as well as the cancellation of interest rate rises. In the Alice in

If Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey was expecting to bat away some gentle questions on monetary policy before the Commons this morning, he hadn’t reckoned on Labour MP Angela Eagle. She was quietly frothing with rage at Bailey’s recent suggestion that workers need to exercise restraint when asking for a pay rise in order

So, Nord Stream 2 will not be plugged into Germany’s gas grid. A little surprisingly, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been first out of the blocks this morning in the western economic response to Putin’s recognition of breakaway states in eastern Ukraine. The block is not total: what Scholz says is that the certification process for

The last time that US inflation hit 7.5 per cent, Ronald Reagan was a recently-elected president. And he, older readers might recall, partly owed his election to inflation. He memorably said during his campaign: ‘inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hitman.’ But what of Britain?

Look up this year’s performance of the shares and bonds which make up your pension fund and you will see that BP and Shell are the rare chinks of light. BP is up 15 per cent and Shell up 20 per cent, with both enjoying bumper profits on the back of high oil and gas

The emergence of Covid provoked a worldwide economic crash. That lasted a mere four weeks. By the time western countries were locking down, a bull market had begun afresh. Through months of lockdowns, soaring case rates and death rates, shares were not just rebounding but marking new highs – firstly involving tech shares and online

There would have been times when the news ‘Bank of England doubles interest rates’ would have been met with a shudder. But when the move takes rates merely from 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent it hardly ranks as a shock at all. The days when the base rate reached 15 per cent seem