99 Red balloons 🎈

Happy Monday. Not the best week for the stocks and shares ISAs last week. Probably best not to look, instead, sit back and wait for it all to blow over.

We’ve been seeing more red than Nena in 1984, when she dropped ‘99 red balloons’ and flew up the singles charts. Pop it on, still a banger.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: Tesco (TSCO), JTC Plc (JTC), Hilton Food Group (HFG), THG (THG).

Notable US earnings this week: JP Morgan Chase & Co (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Morgan Stanley (MS), Blackrock (BLK).

📈📉

PROJECT WATCH

✈️ Government gives green light for Luton Airport expansion. Read more

🏗️ Torsion & Khalbros to build £1bn Leeds neighbourhood. Read more

🌊 Vettenfall awards subsea O&M cable contract to DeepOcean. Read more

ECONOMY & FINANCE

UK / US Trade and tariffs
We can imagine with all of this economic doom and gloom tariff talk that you, like us, spent a lot of last week wondering “what do we actually export to the US?”. Well here you go - a handy Teapot shopping list for you to mull over with your colleagues.

UK Exports to the US (What we sell that now faces a tariff) 

• Planes & Parts - Aircraft components and engines (Rolls-Royce is a big name here)

• Cars - Luxury and performance vehicles (think Jaguar Land Rover, MINI)

• Pharmaceuticals - Medicines, vaccines, and biotech goods

• Booze - Scotch whisky (a major British export!), gin, and specialty beers

• Creative Goods & Service - TV shows, films, music licensing (hello, Downton Abbey and Adele)

• IT & Financial Services - Business consulting, fintech services, legal expertise

• Clothing & Fashion - High-end British fashion brands and accessories

• Chemicals - Industrial chemicals, including specialised formulations

UK Imports from the US (What the UK buys)

• Tech & Electronics
  Laptops, smartphones, semiconductors (Apple, Dell, Intel etc.)

• Cars - American brands like Tesla, Ford, and Jeep

• Medicines - Biotech drugs, insulin, and specialist pharmaceuticals

• Food Products - Nuts, wine, cereals, soybeans (especially after recent trade shifts)

• Aircraft & Space Equipment - Parts and systems used in civil aviation and aerospace

• Entertainment & Software - Movies, streaming services, and gaming software (Disney+, Netflix, EA)

• Machinery & Tools - Industrial equipment for manufacturing, construction, etc.

• Petroleum Products - Refined oil, lubricants, and energy-related chemicals

Jaguar Land Rover pulls the handbrake on US exports
JLR has screeched to a halt on US-bound shipments after Donald Trump slapped a lovely 25% import tax on non-US-assembled vehicles. Cheers for that, Don.

The luxury marque is giving its supply chain time to stretch its legs and figure out how to dodge the tariff tripwire. Mexico and Canada get some special treatment (with their supply chains so intertwined with US carmakers), but our dear, rain-drenched Blighty is left clutching its clipboard at the trade gate.

As JLR pauses its stateside dreams, exporting nearly a third of its annual 400,000 units to North America, the British car industry once again finds itself wondering whether the light at the end of the tunnel is a solution… or an oncoming train.

POLITICS

Chagos and chips
Just when you thought the post-colonial clean-up was finally winding down, the UK’s dustiest diplomatic cupboard has flung open again—revealing, once more, the Chagos Islands. No 10 confirms it’s working with Mauritius to finalise a handover deal, with a twist: the UK and US will still run their Diego Garcia military man cave for the next 99 years (with a cheeky 40-year extension option, because why not make it a round 139?).

It’s less “Here’s your island back” and more “You can have the title deeds, but we’re subletting the penthouse.” Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s chin is up, Kemi Badenoch’s arms are crossed, and Trump—still squinting at a map—mumbles support, reckoning the lease is 140 years.

Mauritius, meanwhile, still argues it was strong-armed out of Chagos in the swinging '60s as the price of independence. The UN agrees. The US used it to build a base, and the locals were booted out. Now, Labour’s trying to tidy this up like a guest reluctantly cleaning someone else’s BBQ mess—complicated, costly, and just a bit smoky.

Birmingham’s waste not, want rot
While the UK haggles over far-flung isles, something is wheelie wrong in our second city, Birmingham’s sinking under a tide of tat closer to home. Brum’s bins are bursting at the seams as a strike by Unite over pay cuts turns the city centre into a rat rave. Hope’s not totally trashed—Angela Rayner’s swooped in to snuff the stench.

Unite accuses the council of binning decent pay and blames austerity; the council says reintroducing scrapped roles opens them to more equal pay liabilities. Meanwhile, residents are going DIY dusties, hauling rubbish like it’s a grim Brummie bin-anza.

And catapulting into legislation, there’s a growing call to ban catapults after vile attacks on swans and wildlife, especially across the South East. The government says laws are already sufficient—just as Birmingham says bin bags are. Whether it's bins or bird-bashers, it seems the UK’s knack for delay, debate and debris is in fine form.

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ACROSS THE POND

Across the pond, to the back of the shelf
The world watches in awe as the US turns news channels into brain-rot reels - flicking to another breaking development fifteen seconds after the last. Now consumers worldwide have decided to star in their own protest spin-off. With the release of the "liberation day" tariffs sending shockwaves across the global marketplace, a torrent of boycott USA messages is flooding social media and search engines faster than you can say "Twitter storm".

While American president Trump waves his economic big stick, our favourite protest includes Canadian shoppers politely flipping US products upside down like some topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland protest. Denmark is getting on the bandwagon, as stores proudly attach a black star to European products.

Across the Channel, Brits may raise an eye, a cup of tea in hand, to discover British staples like Cadbury, Boots, and Waterstones have somewhat of a Chevron-striped skeleton in their closets, being owned by our cousins across the pond. I’m not sure I’m ready to see a Britain not fuelled by Dairy Milk.

Some defendants of Trump’s tariffs argue the current US trade deficit is unsustainable, likening it to a business continuing to buy more supplies than it ever sells goods - but we wait and see if the tariffs help or hinder their situation.

TECH

Pole patrol of the coolest orbit
Elon Musk’s Dragon capsule rocketed four bold adventurers on a trip that quite literally went full circle—around both Earth’s poles. That’s right, it was a polar express without the cocoa but with a £42m price tag per ticket. Bitcoin billionaire Chun Wang led the charge, inviting a filmmaker, a robotics boffin, and an Aussie Arctic expert to join his frosty orbital escapade. Chun posted a picture of one of the most chill office setups you’ll likely see.

They launched Monday, waved at penguins and polar bears from 270 miles up, and splashed down Friday in the Pacific—the first time humans have done so since bell-bottoms were in vogue (1975, to be precise).

Tariff tiffs & TikTok tangles
Thought the TikTok tango was finally tapped out? Trump’s slammed the pause button again, extending the deadline to boot ByteDance from American soil. Why? Apparently, China's not keen on his “Liberation Day” tariffs, and talks have turned into diplomatic dial-up. ByteDance insists it’s still chatting to the US, but crucial ‘signatures’ are missing, much like the logic in this entire escapade.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's caught in the crossfire, yanking US pre-orders for the hotly anticipated Switch 2 due to a 24% Japan tariff—cheeky timing, considering they’d just shown it off. Brits, breathe easy: our pre-orders are safe. For now. But with tariffs flying like rogue bananas in Mario Kart, it's no wonder global markets are feeling a bit shell-shocked. All eyes are now on April 10th, when China’s counter-punch kicks in—making trade the ultimate game of “who blinks first”. One wonders if diplomacy might soon need an up, up, down, down, left, right, cheat code.

WORLD

Flat out-of-order
Spain’s sunshine-soaked cities were less “¡olé!” and more “Air-no-B&B!” this weekend, as protestors in Madrid and 39 other hotspots rattled their keys—not to get in, but to get landlords out. The message? Spain’s housing market has gone from casa to catastrophe. With rents doubling and house prices soaring 44% in a decade, tourists aren’t just taking selfies—they’re taking entire neighbourhoods.

The capital’s streets were a sea of banners bemoaning the rise of short-term lets and the vanishing act of affordable homes. From Lavapiés to Palma de Mallorca, the chant was clear: “Neither houses without people, nor people without houses.” Even those with respectable paycheques are finding themselves priced out, flat-hunting with more desperation than a Love Island contestant seeking a slow-mo strut—affordable digs are as rare as a siesta in Soho.

Meanwhile, the government’s scramble to regulate rentals is trailing behind the Airbnb boom like a bad TripAdvisor review. Barcelona has promised to phase out 10,000 holiday lets by 2028—but for many, that’s mañana thinking.

Pyongyang’s predictable podium
Over in North Korea, the Pyongyang Marathon made a dramatic comeback, its first since the pandemic slammed borders shut tighter than a British pub at midnight. Some 200 foreigners legged it alongside locals to mark the upcoming birthday bash for Kim Il Sung (he’d be 113 this month).

The runners dashed past monuments and propaganda planks with all the enthusiasm of a double shift Deliveroo cyclist chasing tips in a downpour, cheered on by 50,000 spectators in a stadium where the masks may have been optional, but the spectacle was mandatory. A North Korean took gold, naturally. When the home team controls the cameras, it's rude not to win.

There’s still tea in the pot...
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Cuppa Chat: Cheat Sheet

🛒🛡️ Asda is trialling facial recognition technology in five Greater Manchester stores to combat retail crime. The system cross-references live images with a database of known offenders.

🪲🏺 A 3,800-year-old Canaanite scarab amulet was found by three-year-old Ziv Nitzan in Israel’s Tel Azekah area. Scarabs, used as seals and amulets, were designed to resemble dung beetles and signify ties between Canaanites and Egyptians.

👸🏽✂️ The Miss Ivory Coast pageant has banned wigs, weaves, and extensions in a move to showcase natural beauty, stirring debate across the country.

🏇🏆 Nick Rockett, with odds of 33/1, won the Grand National ridden by Patrick Mullins, son of trainer Willie Mullins, whose horses claimed four of the top five spots.

🎨🕵️‍♂️ Two men charged with stealing a £95,000 Banksy print from a Belfast gallery appeared in court.

🎶🏛️ Jersey Opera House reopens after five years for Liberation Day concerts, marking 80th anniversary of German occupation's end with performances by the Philharmonia Orchestra and singer Georgie Mae-Bishop.