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tobyn.bsky.social
“Veteran” fund manager. FT contrib ed. Resolution Foundation Assoc. Baring Foundation Trustee.
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Doing DD & WTAF?!? 4 x Main +2⭐️=£844?!? 4 x Main = £25.60😡
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Forgot to buy a ticket a ticket.
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Bet Matt Hancock is regretting shutting down the Matt App.
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I reckon here that there's a path to moving them to a funded basis on.ft.com/49HE9Vi
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For more on civil service, NHS, etc pensions see on.ft.com/3S7i9gX
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No - looks about the right number for LGPS + LGPS Scotland, and a few other disparate funded schemes (MP's Pensions, Bank of England).
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UK pensions have been absolutely dominated by private DB assets all my working life. The rise of DC AuM was forever forecast, but only a fairly recent actuality.
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Can see that consumers collectively switching from cards to stablecoins would help merchants, and that this could lead to lower prices. But can't see the incentives for consumers to individually switch from cards.
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Paying with cash is inconvenient. But avoids interchange fees. But guessing cash discounts offered by merchants are more about dodging taxes than skimping interchange fees?
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Transacting with stablecoins avoids “anomalously extortionate” US card fees - but wouldn’t cost gains accrue to merchants rather than consumers?
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These both look to be quite good value for what they are!
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Buying early seems way to maximize daydream utility. Though can’t see how winning would interfere with FT gig.
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Just oversharing mental hurdles I need to overcome before Friday.
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While I find it hard to disassociate HY spreads from general credit conditions, charts like this argue that the public market has detached from more general credit conditions — potentially given the growth of private credit availability.
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PIK interest % of total interest for 16 big BDCs 👀
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Share of loans going Payment-In-Kind now >10%. S&P reckons PIKs can be a sign of distress.
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Interesting stuff John! I guess that guessing what the surplus will be is contingent on getting a good feel for how the discount rates will pan out. I was pretty surprised by quite how diverse they are across LGPS AAs. Agree that the surplus number will be big though!
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Thanks Crispin - good to see you here!
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Feels weird that the market has just — over the last 18mths — gone 'meh - same number will do'. It's not like this has alway been the case.
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But should they be the same number, trading higher/ lower from day-to-day and week-to-week?
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Children services spending has increased. Sure Start cut, and expensive acute responsive spending has risen. "I know, we can save money by scrapping fire extinguishers. Oh no, the burns unit just keeps on needing more and more money"
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What has been squeezed out by the increase in social care costs? Everything else. www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/defaul...
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According to Demos, across all local authorities, adult and children’s social care combined accounts for 67% of spending demos.co.uk/blogs/public...
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Reform's political opponents would do well to address the issue rather than decide that it's all too difficult and continually kick the can down the road.
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It feels like one outcome is that Reform will make mainstream what wonks have complained about for years: that central govt puts legal requirements on councils to provide services without full consideration of their funding.
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Interesting — how you'd test this idea? (My mind went to degree-bearing baristas and security guards living in flat-shares in outer London, which would be the opposite.)