This week, Gareth and Jeremy discuss Moody's downgrade of US debt, Donald's Big Beautiful Bill (yes, that is what it is called), and the bond vigilantes' work at the long end of the yield curve. Jeremy discusses Japan's special place in all this and wonders how the world's monetary authorities can put the long-term inflation genie back in the bottle.

In the UK, inflation and government borrowing were higher than expected, making it a bad week for Rachel Reeves. But at least we have rejoined the EU (well, agreed to agree with them about a few things).

Despite all this, the UK market remained in a decent mood with small and mid-cap stocks outperforming large-cap stocks.

Gareth discusses updates and results from Forterra, IDOX and SDI Group.   

Next week, some US Q1 GDP data is widely expected to show a sharp decline in activity.

However, investors' main focus is likely to remain on the long end of the bond market and how to avoid the impact of FX and bond volatility. 

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