Markets will celebrate Putin’s fall – but not yet

As the Wagner convoy rumbled northwards towards Moscow on Saturday, markets braced for turmoil. What would armed uprising in Russia do to the supply and price of oil, gas, wheat or fertiliser? Would it provoke investor flights to gold or bitcoin? But when the episode fizzled out, Monday’s prices saw little more than upticks, with natural gas traders more preoccupied by outages in Norway and FTSE action refocused on dim domestic economic prospects. Sighs of relief all round, then, and a simple conclusion: world markets will hail the demise of Vladimir Putin – so long as he goes slowly, of natural causes, and not before the end of the great inflation.

Money matters

‘What should I read to understand inflation?’ asks a friend. Top of my own bedside book pile is We Need To Talk About Inflation by HSBC economist Stephen D. King, who draws lessons from history to capture (according to the former Bank of England governor Mervyn King) ‘everything you wanted to know about inflation but were afraid to ask’.