Inflation, rate rises & tapering; should you care? Plus we pitch Paul two new stonks!

Who needs to reaffirm their belief in Jesus? Find out in this week’s Playing FTSE show!!

We start off with some news. In a week where the FED announced an increase in the speed of their proposed tapering — to finish in March, rather than June — and three interest rate increases in 2022, the Bank of England also announced a hike in interest rates. Paul and the Steves start off by thinking about the significance of these movements for their investing lives and consider the immediate response from the market. Steve D points out that the announcements remove some of the uncertainty. Steve W notes that the raises in rates aren’t that aggressive, and Paul thinks about Tesla, because it’s not a podcast until someone does.

Next is game from Steve D called “Split!” Taking us back to school with some questions in the style of a Maths GCSE, Steve D asks questions about historic splits, reverse splits, and share offerings. Paul and Steve W attempt to guess hopelessly at questions they can’t possibly know the answer to as well as attempting to remember the answer to questions that they ought to be able to get on account of owning the companies involved. One of the players uses his quota of lucky guessing for the year playing this one — find out who!

Last week, on the podcast, Paul announced that he was in the market for a new stock. With Christmas fast approaching and this being a time for giving, the Steves thought they would go off and try to find him one. Based on Paul’s requirement that the stock should be one that “goes up” Steve D presents a mysterious stock with no name but lots of nice features. It’s a big big company and you absolutely will have heard of it — see if you can guess what it is. Steve W, on the other hand takes the road less traveled, into utilities to look at a company that you probably will not have heard of but it does have a name and pays a growing dividend. Will Paul like either of them? Who knows…

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