FCA decides to ban Crispin Odey and fine him £1.8m
Newsflash: Britain’s City watchdog has decided to fine financier Crispin Odey £1.8m and ban him from the UK financial services industry “for a lack of integrity”.
The Financial Conduct Authority says that it believes Odey “deliberately sought to frustrate” the disciplinary processes of his hedge fund, Odey Asset Management LLP (OAM) “to protect his own interests”, following allegations of sexual harassment.
The FCA says:
Mr Odey showed reckless disregard for OAM’s governance, causing OAM to breach certain regulatory requirements. In addition, the FCA considers that Mr Odey’s behaviour towards both OAM and the FCA lacked candour.
The FCA considers Mr Odey’s conduct demonstrated that he is not a fit and proper person to perform any function related to regulated activities.
Odey has referred his Decision Notice to the Upper Tribunal where he and the FCA will present their cases, meaning the FCA’s findings are provisional.
The regulator explains that Odey used his majority shareholding in OAM to remove the existing members of its executive committee, just weeks before he was due to appear for a disciplinary hearing in January 2022. Having appointed himself ExCo’s sole member, Odey decided the disciplinary hearing into his conduct would be indefinitely postponed since he said he was unable to conduct it with impartiality, the FCA explains.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA said:
“A culture of silence in which allegations of misconduct are not dealt with effectively can put consumers and markets at risk. Mr Odey repeatedly sought to evade and obstruct efforts to hold him to account. His lack of integrity means he deserves to be banned from the industry.”
The FCA’s ruling follows allegations published last year by the Financial Times, with Tortoise Media, which reported claims of sexual assault and harassment against Odey from 20 women. The allegations led to him being removed from his hedge fund business, and in October 2023 OAM announced it was closing.
Odey has previously denied the allegations against him, and is suing the FT for libel, seeking at least £79m in damages.
Key events
Closing post
Time to wrap up, with a quick recap….
Oil has hit a two-week high today, after the United States vowed to keep attacking Yemen’s Houthis until the Iran-aligned group ends its assaults on shipping.
The crude price was also lifted by. China’s ambitious plans to “vigorously boost consumption” by putting up pay and reducing financial burdens, in its latest attempt to increase consumer confidence and lift its struggling economy.
The hedge fund manager Crispin Odey will be banned from the City and hit with a £1.8m fine by the UK’s financial watchdog for deliberately attempting to “frustrate” a disciplinary process into sexual harassment allegations.
Donald Trump’s trade wars continue to ripple though the global economy, with the president insisting that reciprical and sectoral tariffs will be imposed on 2 April, as he has previously indicated.
The flurry of tariffs since Trump returned to the White House has also hit confidence among US builders, who face higher costs.
The OECD has cut its growth forecast, with Mexico and Canada suffering sharp downgrades due to the threat of tariffs on their exports to the US.
Rachel Reeves has told UK regulators that “too much bureaucracy” is making it “too slow to get things done” across the UK, in a clampdown on red tape.
The former Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean has warned the chancellor against making kneejerk cuts in next week’s spring statement to try to hit fiscal targets that are five years away.
More than £3.5bn has been wiped off the value of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer’s stock since Friday amid fears that rival Asda will step up the grocery price war.
The court of appeal has upheld Thames Water’s £3bn emergency bailout loan.
Heather Stewart
The former Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean has warned the chancellor against making kneejerk cuts in next week’s spring statement to try to hit fiscal targets that are five years away.
Rachel Reeves is preparing to slash spending, including on disability benefits, in response to weaker forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – prompting a backlash from within her own party.
But Bean – who is also a former member of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee, which agrees the forecasts – warned the chancellor against “fine-tuning”.
“We’ve got ourselves into a frankly pretty ridiculous position where we’re doing fiscal fine-tuning to control the OBR forecast five years ahead,” Bean told an event hosted by the Resolution Foundation thinktank on Monday.
The dollar is weakening today, down 0.25% against a basket of currencies.
This has pushed sterling up to $1.2980, near to the four-month high touched last week.
The euro has hit its highest level in nearly a week, up 0.36% at $1.0918.
US housebuilder confidence hit by tariff fears
Business confidence among US building companies has dropped this month, due to the triple threat of economic uncertainty, tariffs and elevated construction costs.
The latest healthcheck of the sector from the National Association of Home Builders shows that builder sentiment fell in March.
Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes was 39 in March, down three points from February and the lowest level in seven months, according to the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.
Let’s change tariff policies daily and scare all the workers out of the country!!! NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes said: “Builders continue to face elevated building material costs that are exacerbated by tariff issues, as well as other supply-side challenges that include labor and… pic.twitter.com/Zm7A4jir4o
— Richard Farr (@farrmacro) March 17, 2025
NAHB chairman Buddy Hughes says:
Builders continue to face elevated building material costs that are exacerbated by tariff issues, as well as other supply-side challenges that include labor and lot shortages.
The Trump administration has claimed that tariffs are paid by foreign countries when they sell goods into the US, and are a tax cut for Americans.
But NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz also warns that construction firms are facing “added cost pressures from tariffs”, explaining:
“Data from the HMI March survey reveals that builders estimate a typical cost effect from recent tariff actions at $9,200 per home. Uncertainty on policy is also having a negative impact on home buyers and development decisions.”
NAHB 39 (est 42, last 42)
Existing Home Sales m/m -9.8% (est -, last -3.3%)Housing market struggles to recover, NAHB pointing to contraction in gross private domestic investment in Q2… pic.twitter.com/xaddyWpQQb
— Mario Cavaggioni (@CavaggioniMario) March 17, 2025
Financial markets in Europe and the US are starting the new week on the front foot.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 index is up 12 points, or 0.23%, at 5,651 points. That’ll be a welcome sight for New York traders, who have seen the S&P 500 fall almost 8% in the last month.
In London, the FTSE 100 share index has gained 0.5%, or 42 points, to 8674 points, a one-week high.
Oil lifted by US-Houthi attacks and China economic hopes
The oil price has jumped by 1% today after the US launched airstrikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis over the weekend, and pledged to continue them indefinitely.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, is up 70 cents per barrel to $71.23/barrel, having hit a two-week high early this morning.
US crude is up 63 cents per barrel at $67.80/barrel.
The US attacks have raised concerns that tensions in the region could escalate, with the Houthis reporting they had launched a retaliatory attack on the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.
The US says it will continus its attacks until the Houtis cease attacks on shipping in the Red Sea area. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told Fox News:
“The minute the Houthis say ‘we’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones’, this campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting.”
Milad Azar, market analyst at XTB MENA, explains:
Crude oil futures rebounded amid rising tensions in the Middle East. US operations against Yemen’s Houthis could leave traders on edge. The geopolitical risks could support oil prices in the short term, but the market could remain cautious in the face of the uncertainty regarding the long-term impact.
Oil could also be benefitting from encouraging economic data from China overnight, which showed retail sales rose to 4.0% year-on-year in January and February, beating market expectations.
Consumption could also be lifted by a new “special action plan” unveiled by Beijing policymakers last weeked, as part of a drive to support the economy in the face of Donald Trump’s trade war.
Here’s a breakdown of February’s US retail sales report, from EY’s chief economist, Greg Daco:
🇺🇸 Soft rebound in Feb following January plunge
✅#Retail sales +0.2%
🟠Adj for inflation 0%✅Core +1%
✅Adj for infl 0.9%💻Online 2.4%
⚕️Health 1.7%
🛒Groc 0.4%
🏠Build mat 0.2%
🛋️Furn 0%
🎮Elec -0.3%
⚽️Sport -0.4%
🚗Auto -0.4%
👗Cloth -0.6%
⛽️Gas -1%
👩🍳Rest/bar -1.5% pic.twitter.com/N6bwrIYtwj— Gregory Daco (@GregDaco) March 17, 2025
US retail sales miss forecasts:: What the experts say
Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, has found some upsides in today’s US retail sales data:
The 0.2% m/m rise in retail sales was not as strong as the 0.6% rebound eyed by the consensus estimate, but the 0.3% gain in core sales (i.e. excluding autos) was at least a lot better than the 0.8% plunge indicated by the timelier Chicago Fed CARTS data.
The bright spots were sales at nonstore retailers and health & personal care stores, which rose by 2.4% and 1.7%, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, food services & drinking place sales slumped by 1.5%, gasoline store sales by 1.0% and motor vehicle & parts sales by 0.4%. None of those are included in the control group sales estimate that feeds into real consumption, however, which meant that control group sales did far better than expected with a 1.0% m/m jump – all but reversing the same sized decline in January.
But… Jonathan Moyes, head of investment research at Wealth Club, fears the American consumer does not look well:
“US trade policy has dominated the news and had an unsettling effect on global financial markets. With sentiment so poor, investors will have been hoping the mighty US consumer provides reassurance that all is well on Main Street. They didn’t find it, with retail sales coming in lower than expected the US consumer is starting to look a little peaky.
This puts the Federal Reserve in a tough spot. The hard data looks weak, and forward-looking data, like consumer and business confidence surveys, show conditions are deteriorating. In the short term, trade tariffs will surely stoke inflation. The key question is whether the recent data is weak enough to warrant additional interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. The bond market reaction today suggests it is not.”
US Retail Sales come in well below expectations.
This is the last “big” US economic data point before the Fed’s policy decision this Wednesday… pic.twitter.com/zwAsqG3EoW
— Lobo Tiggre (@duediligenceguy) March 17, 2025
US retail sales growth misses forecasts
Over in America, retail sales grew rather less than expected last month – perhaps a sign that the US economy is slowing.
US retail and food services sales for February 2025 rose by 0.2% month-on-month in February, according to an advance estimate just released, weaker than the 0.6% growth expected.
Spending at motor vehicle & parts dealers fell by 0.4% in the month, while spending on gasoline was down 1%, probably due to a dip in gas prices.
Spending at food services & drinking places fell by 1.5% in February compared with January (but were 1.5% higher than a year ago), which could be an indication of consumers cutting back.
US FEB. RETAIL SALES RISE 0.2% M/M; EST. +0.6%
*US FEB. RETAIL SALES EX-AUTO RISE 0.3% M/M; EST. +0.4%*US FEB. RETAIL SALES EX AUTOS, GAS RISE 0.5% M/M; PREV. -0.5%
*US FEB. RETAIL ‘CONTROL GROUP’ SALES RISE 1% M/M; PREV. -0.8 pic.twitter.com/cwaPInjYeR— LWS Financial Research (@lwsresearch) March 17, 2025
Struggling UK utility Thames Water has won a court battle over the restructuring plan that will give it more liquidity to keep operating.
Appealas against Thames’s £3bn debt lifeline had been rejected by the Court of Appeal, allowing the company to avoid a state rescue.
Appeal court judges dismissed an appeal from environmental campaigners and a small group of Thames creditors after a three-day hearing last week.
Both groups argued that the “eye-watering” costs of the £3bn emergency loan, at interest rates of 9.75%, were not in the public interest. They said putting the ailing water company, which has debts of £19bn, into temporary nationalisation under a special administration regime would be more cost effective.
In a statement, Thames Water said its focus was now on getting onto a more stable financial footing.
Thames Water chief executive Chris Weston said in a statement:
“We continue to work closely with our creditors, enabling us to access liquidity to continue to implement our turnaround plan so we can deliver better results for our customers and the environment.”
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