Gareth and Jeremy discuss the key factors that have impacted financial markets over the past week and take a look ahead to what lies ahead for investors.

Bond markets got the yips over talks of IMF visits for France and the UK. However, no one informed the FX market, and the value of the £ remained solid, helped in part by the weakening of the $. However, it's all relative, and the real value of things is reflected in gold and other real assets.

US labour markets showed more signs of weakness, but with persistent inflation.

US tech giants continue to dominate, but with little scrutiny of the returns that their substantial AI capital expenditures might yield. Oracle was in the spotlight this week, with some extraordinary results, launching its founder back into the top spot on the world's richest person leader board.

Despite our volatile politics, UK equities remain in demand, and risk assets more broadly remain in good fettle.

The long wait for the UK Budget might be because they are working on a cunning plan for growth, or they are simply waiting for things to improve. Of course, both could be true. Either way is a frustrating wait.

Meanwhile, the results and updates offer a mixed bag, indicating that the UK consumer remains active.

Jeremy offers a view on Treatt's fall from grace and its Board's disappointing acceptance of the modestly pitched PE offer the company received this week.

Looking ahead, the main focus will be on the Fed's rate decision, where the overwhelming expectation is for a 25 bps cut to 4.25%.

But most people will be more interested in President Trump's second state visit to the UK, which begins on Tuesday. Shhh, nobody mention Jeffrey Epstein.

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This week, Jeremy and Gareth debate Trump's ongoing attacks on the US Fed...perhaps Powell is rolling over, but the recently "sacked" board member Lisa Cook is not. The dollar fell and long bond yields rose, but not by much. France is showing renewed (and traditional) political risk, and the landscape across Europe feels pressured. The UK is once again facing an Autumn of Worry as the budget's tax-more-or-spend-less balancing act seems destined to repeat last year's wheel of fortune on which part of the economy will bear the brunt of new taxes.

In the absence of much small-cap news, the pair consider the misfortunes of Drax, the former coal-fired power generation group, now reinvented doing the "green thing" of burning wood pellets to produce electricity. This week saw news that the FCA is investigating the veracity of some of the their historic claims around the source of these pellets (Drax claims they're mainly "off-cuts" of wood that's already being logged). Whether or not there's an issue, it is possible that the attention might focus minds on the genuine green credentials of shipping wood across the Atlantic to burn it, and then claiming that by capturing the carbon released and then burying it, the whole process is "carbon negative". More broadly, some governments are actively against the renewables agenda, and others actively can't afford it.

Next week we get the excitement of US jobs data - Trump wants data weak enough to prompt a big interest rate cut, but not weak enough to look like a recession. Whoever's in charge of "deciding" the number better tread a careful line, or they might join the jobless stats for the following months.

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This week has been relatively quiet. Gareth and Jeremy discuss the prospects for peace in Europe, the not quite so bad news, but still not good news, about the UK economy and our public finances.

UK inflation and the long end of the gilt market both look like they might be getting out of control. UK inflation has now been above target for 49 out of the last 51 reports. Not conventionally a scenario in which to cut rates, unless, of course, it is transitory.

Jeremy talks about the significance of Jay Powell's speech at Jackson Hole later today (3 pm UK time) and asks whether he is prepared to die on the hill of inflation and central bank independence.

Gareth then highlights the dramatic warning and share price reaction from WHSmith this week and its potential implications.

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