July ’26: An IPO, and France

It feels as if the World Cup was ages ago, already. Yet only a few weeks ago, I was gripped. And for once I thought England had a world-class side…. but hey ho, football hasn’t come home for another four years. I had a road trip through France in July, which was lovely. I am pleased to report that the infrastructure for charging electric cars in France is considerably ahead of what we have in the UK – not least because of the EU rule that you have to be able to just ‘pay as you go’ with a credit card, without signing up to some irritating app. Meanwhile, the Iran conflict rumbled on, and the market’s jitters about AI continued too. Markets in July My weighted market benchmark rose marginally on a constant-currency basis, but fell by 0.8% allowing for currency movements. US and International markets generally didn’t have a great July. USD and EUR both fell slightly against the GBP. Whereas UK equities had a surprisingly robust month – with strong corporate earnings, and mutterings…