Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the US inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

US inflation fell to 2.4 per cent in September but still exceeded expectations, cementing expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by a quarter point at its next meeting in November.

Thursday’s headline figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was below August’s 2.5 per cent annual increase but above economists’ expectations of 2.3 per cent.

The figure, the last before the November 5 presidential election, came after the Fed cut rates by a larger-than-usual half point last month amid signs that it was succeeding in its battle to tame price pressures.

After the release of the inflation data, as well as figures showing a jump in joblessness, investors increased their bets on a quarter-point cut at the November Fed meeting.

Markets were pricing in a roughly 90 per cent chance of such a cut in November following the data, compared with 80 per cent beforehand.

The interest rate-sensitive two-year Treasury yield, which moves inversely to prices, edged 0.03 percentage points lower to 3.98 per cent. The S&P 500 was down 0.3 per cent shortly after Wall Street’s opening bell on Thursday morning.

Thursday’s inflation figure marked the sixth consecutive month the annual headline rate has fallen. However, once volatile items such as food and energy were stripped out, “core” inflation rose faster than expected, up 3.3 per cent in the year to September.

Economists had expected the core rate to remain at August’s 3.2 per cent.

“It’s just evidence that it’s going to be a gradual path from here to get to the Fed’s target,” said Tony Rodriguez, head of fixed income strategy at asset manager Nuveen, referring to the US central bank’s 2 per cent inflation target.

“The easy gains in disinflation are well behind us, and from here, it’s likely to be a little bit bumpier path,” he added.

Jobless claims data on Thursday also exceeded economists’ expectations. The number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance jumped to 258,000, almost 30,000 more than the forecast figure and the highest weekly increase since August 2023.

The latest numbers present a mixed picture of the world’s largest economy just weeks before voting closes.

Vice-president and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has struggled to overcome voters’ discontent about rising costs in her bid for the White House. Harris has hoped that a more benign economic backdrop of solid growth and falling interest rates will bolster her chances against Republican nominee Donald Trump.

“The [inflation] number might not help the Harris campaign because voters are paying more attention to their personal experience of paying prices that went up but not back down than they pay to numbers from the government,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

But Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Thursday’s figures were in line with the trend that prevailed before the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine pushed up inflation, and showed continued progress in getting costs under control.

US central bankers will also be scrutinising the data as they wrestle with how quickly to lower interest rates to a “neutral” level that no longer inhibits economic growth.

Month-on-month headline inflation remained at 0.2 per cent for September, the same figure as the previous two months, overwhelmingly because of price rises for food and housing.

However, energy prices fell 1.9 per cent during the month.

Seamus Mac Gorain, global head of rates at JPMorgan Asset Management, argued that reducing housing-related “shelter” inflation was vital if the Fed was to return inflation to its target.

While rental costs have been falling in the US for roughly a year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ overall “shelter” index has continued to rise, though in September it increased just 0.2 per cent, compared with 0.5 per cent the previous month.

The decline in inflation from its 2022 peak of 9.1 per cent has so far not triggered a significant weakening of the labour market, surprising many economists.

Last week’s US jobs report showed that businesses added 254,000 positions in September, far outstripping expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 per cent after several months of increases.

New York Fed president John Williams told the Financial Times this week that monetary policy was “well positioned” to pull off a so-called soft landing following the half-point cut, as inflation eased and the economy kept growing.

Williams said Fed officials’ projections released last month, which indicated a half-point worth of cuts to come over the two remaining meetings this year, were a “very good base case”.

Chair Jay Powell recently suggested such a reduction would be delivered through two quarter-point cuts rather than another half-point move.

FED-UP locals living in a new build “ghost town” have slammed developers that left them without a high street.

There is no post office, no newsagent, no greengrocers and no convenience store in Cambourne, a few miles from Cambridge.

10

10

Advertisement

10

10

And although bus stop signs were erected in West Cambourne, no buses ever stop there.

The second pub locals were promised never materialised either.

Instead, most of the High Street is just an open space covered in grass, with a café, building society and a Turkish barbers at one end and few houses clustered at the other.

Now instead of the shops planned when work began in the 1990s, there are proposals to build another 30 townhouses and 87 flats there.

“It’s sh*t,” said one angry man out walking with his young daughter at the weekend. “Absolute sh*t.

“They just want to make money by building more houses and forget about amenities for the people who live here.”

Danny Dove, 78, sat enjoying a beer outside the Monkfield Arms, the town’s only pub, agreed.

“Apart from this place there’s not much to do here,” he said. “It’s a bit of a ghost town really.”

Seyi Daramola, 44, who had spent the afternoon shopping in Morrisons supermarket with his 11-year-old daughter Dara, reckoned the town lacks soul.

“We do need some more shops,” said Seyi, who recently moved to Cambourne from north London. “It would add a bit of character to the town.”

Mum-of-three Gaynor Cooke, 61, who moved to the town in 2003, added: “There have been a lot of broken promises.

“We were supposed to have a market square, but nothing happened with that.

“There was even talk of a golf course, but we didn’t get that either.

“Instead we just ended up with a load of estate agents!

“It would be nice to have some small, unique shops, if only a greengrocers. A bit of variety would be lovely.”

Fiona Smith, 52, out with her 13-year-old daughter Caitlin, said: “I’d like to see another pub and a second supermarket rather than more houses.

“A couple more restaurants wouldn’t go amiss, perhaps even a cinema. And we really do need a post office.”

Doctors Lahiry Deiyagala and Kokila Karunarthne, both 38, both love living in Cambourne.

But they face a 20-minute drive to Huntingdon, nine miles away, if they want to stock up with their favourite Asian foods.

“We need another supermarket – or at least a bigger one – with a wider choice of items,” said Lahiry. “That would save us a journey!”

Christine Walker, 77, out walking her dog Oscar, said: “It is doggie heaven here because we are surrounded by lovely countryside.

“And the tea shop is lovely. But there is not a lot for youngsters and we could do with another pub.”

Zac Edwards, 31, said: “It’s a very friendly town and the people are lovely. But there’s nothing here.

“The local GP practice is over-subscribed already and it’s virtually impossible to get an appointment at the two practice dentists.

“They put up bus stops in West Cambourne where I live – unfortunately, though, no buses ever stop at them.”

10

Advertisement

10

10

10

Newcrest Cambourne Ltd who have applied for planning permission for the new homes argue they are necessary to make the scheme, which contains “several” new retail units, “commercially viable”.

They claim: “This mix of uses will add to the vibrancy of the town centre bringing people living in the town centre.”

But residents have bombarded South Cambridgeshire District Council with objections.

One said: “The area really ought to be filled with just shops, community spaces and, if any residential at all, it should all be social and affordable housing only.”

Another claimed it was “outrageous” that homes were “being squeezed in to the detriment of the purpose of the High Street” and added: “The proposed application is not appropriate for the community.”

And a third added: “Cambourne has far too much residential development as it is. What we are sorely lacking is retail, services and amenities.

“We need recreational places i.e. a swimming pool (top priority), and other possibilities include cinema, bowling and restaurants. A post office is a necessity.

“We also need a wider variety of shops including alternative supermarkets (e.g. Lidl or Aldi), independent stores/organic grocers, charity shops and TK Maxx.”

But despite the lack of shops and leisure facilities, Cambourne does have one claim to fame – the first, and only, Post Box bearing the cipher of King Charles III.

Unveiled this summer by Julie Spence, the Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, it draws visitors from around the world.

During a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, three cyclists from London photographed themselves with it, before a couple of Dutch tourists arrived and then an excited group of university students from Cambridge.

South Cambridgeshire District Council’s Lead Cabinet Member for Communities, Cllr Henry Batchelor, said: “Cambourne is a successful and beautiful place to live and work – and the amount of open space and woodland is second to none for a new town.

“There’s a strong community engaged in all sorts of innovative projects and activities for all ages – alongside a supermarket, shops and convenience stores, hotels, schools and superb sports facilities.

“Meanwhile, we are in the process of determining a planning application which proposes further retail space on the High Street alongside new homes.

“Our aim, working with our partners, such as Cambourne’s excellent Town Council and residents, is to continue creating a vibrant town with an exemplar transport network that connects communities, allowing people the choice to leave their cars at home.”

The Sun has approached Newcrest Cambourne Ltd for comment.

10

Advertisement

10

A HOLIDAY park expert has revealed some of his top tips – and the key feature he always checks before booking.

Robbie Lane has visited dozens of holiday parks across the UK, with an ambition to one day visit them all.

5

5

Advertisement

Robbie, who runs Holiday Park Guru has been to all kinds of resorts, from the popular Center Parcs and Butlin’s to lesser-known independent sites.

But there is one feature he always makes sure they have before he books a trip there.

The former BBC journalist told Sun Online Travel: “I look for a holiday park that is walking distance to a beach, ideally with a sea view.

He added it makes it “much less hassle” especially when travelling as a family if you can avoid having to pack everything into a car.

He continued: “And it makes it much easier to fit in a quick seaside stroll after tea.”

He also said he tries to make sure the beaches that are at the holiday parks are both clean and safe for children, and gave some trips on where to find his favourites.

Robbie added: “If you want to try surfing and bodyboarding, then Devon and Cornwall are particularly good, as are parts of Wales.

“Haven, Parkdean Resorts and Away Resorts all have holiday parks next to outstanding beaches in the West Country.

“The east coast of England and Scotland has lots of very wide open beaches with big open skies and space for walking the dog.”

One holiday park Robbie previously raved about was Ladram Bay in Devon – an award-winning site with its own private beach.

The sand-washed pebble beach has a stretch of rockpools and watersports like kayaks, paddleboards and motorboats can be rented from the holiday park.

Holidaymakers who don’t fancy a bracing dip will be pleased to know there’s also a heated indoor swimming pool on-site, complete with slides.

There’s also a small pool with a children’s play area as well as an outdoor splash area with water features, spray guns and pirate ships.

Likewise, Darwin Escapes Woodside Coastal Retreat on the Isle of Wight, is one of the Holiday Park Guru’s favourite UK sites.

He previously told Sun Online Travel: “The holiday park is practically on the beach looking towards Portsmouth, it’s brilliant.”

If a holiday park isn’t next to a beach, Robbie recommends looking for an indoor swimming pool.

5

5

The Holiday Park Guru previously recommended Searles in Norfolk and Hendra Holiday Park in Cornwall as two sites with indoor pools.

Searles holiday park in Norfolk is located next to the Victorian seaside town of Hunstanton and has been welcoming families for 83 years.

There are plenty of indoor facilities, including a heated indoor pool with a jacuzzi and sauna.

For younger guests, there’s also an indoor splash pool with dual slides and interactive water features.

Meanwhile, Hendra Holiday Park near Newquay has one of the largest indoor pools in the South West.

The Oasis Fun Pools feature an indoor pool with a river-rapid, a water cannon, tipping buckets, water fountains and three water flume rides.

Earlier this year, Robbie revealed England’s top three underrated holiday parks – with private beaches, indoor water parks and jet skis for kids.

And here are the other lesser-known holiday parks named among the best in the UK.

5

I first learned about neurons from a lecture by physicist and now newly minted Nobel Prize winner John Hopfield at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1985. Hopfield was a senior scientist there, while I was as junior as possible. Bell Labs — the inventors of the transistor — had sponsored a set of lectures focusing on Hopfield’s new mathematical discovery that physics equations could explain neural circuits.

In his lecture, Hopfield showed diagrams of networks now called “Hopfield networks.” Bell Labs was hosting a Hopfield network day honoring him and his new-fangled ideas of using relaxation-energy equations from physics to design networks that “solved” certain difficult problems. Some of his diagrams looked just like the operational amplifiers (op-amps) in electronic circuit diagrams, which I had tinkered with for years — but now he called them neurons. So, my skill at making circuits now applied to brains. I was hooked, and within three years I was accepted as a student in the brand-new academic program called Computation and Neural Systems (CNS) that Hopfield was founding at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

An example of a Hopfield network with four nodes. Via Zawersh on English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).

I attended Caltech in the CNS program’s second year. The first words I heard in a classroom were from Hopfield: roughly, “If you can explain how you do something, say solve an equation, odds are computers can already do it better. If you have no idea how you do it, say how you recognize your mother’s voice, odds are we have no idea how it works, and computers can’t get close.” That insight explains, among other things, why computers are better at following rules than at making sense of real life.

Hopfield himself was imposing, in a grandfatherly way. Six feet tall, he seemed even taller when tipping back on his heels, clasping his hands, looking benignly down his nose and speaking in a booming bass voice. When graduate student Mike Vanier performed an imitation of Hopfield in a skit during our first year, it brought down the house. 

That core class Hopfield taught on Neural Nets (in 1988) was difficult in an epic way. Homework for the very first week — the same week students were still getting computer accounts and finding the bookstore — involved a set of three different kinds of supremely hard problems: solving a difficult set of differential equations, writing and testing a computer program to simulate a simple neural circuit and constructing that same working “neural” circuit by wiring a battery, op-amps, resistors and capacitors up to blink LEDs. Neither programming nor soldering was a stated class requirement. Lucky for me, I already knew how to program and build circuits, so I passed.

In fact, the little circuit I built in Hopfield’s class proved to be a key to my PhD project, and key to his final question for me. Hopfield sat on my committee and approved my thesis — even though I had proved that real neurons can’t possibly operate like those circuits. (Real neurons have to be hundreds-fold faster, at least.)

An interdisciplinary paradise

By world standards, Caltech is a tiny and very exclusive university, having only about a thousand undergrad and another thousand graduate students. Caltech specializes in leading scientific trends; the new CNS program (started with silicon guru Carver Mead) was meant to create an entirely new field by using mathematical techniques from physics, electronics and computer science to understand how information moves in biological systems like brains, muscles, eyes and ears.

Psychology, psychophysics, optics, silicon design, algorithms, neuroscience, robotics — a score of scientific disciplines overlapped in lecture halls, classrooms and labs. It was an interdisciplinary paradise. Caltech’s philosophy is to base nearly everything (even biology) on physics principles. Hopfield and Mead’s common treatment of biological information processing as continuous equation accessible to physics, following in this tradition, made the CNS program a scientific innovation.

Hopfield’s contribution to physics, and to science in general, was to link well-established math about molecules and crystals to poorly understood computation problems like parallel processing and machine intelligence. His key scientific invention (the Hopfield network) was complex enough to solve real and interesting AI-like problems but simple enough to explain through equations initially designed to describe crystal formation. Hopfield created a whole new form of analog computation with his nets and a whole new way of describing neurons with the math behind them.

(While they make the math easier, it turns out that Hopfield’s smoothly responding mathematical “neurons” are nothing like real neurons in brains. Real neurons make irregular pulses whose noisy crackle must, in fact, carry information — a point first made in my dissertation under Christof Koch. [You can read the PDF here.] This fact undermines the one thing neuroscience thought it knew about the neural code.)

The Caltech CNS program was a university-wide expansion of Hopfield’s approach, bringing together math-wielding theorists with lab-bench experimentalists. As a member of both camps, I was in my element, and everyone around me was, too. It was exhilarating to bring humanity’s last 50 years of technological progress in audio, radio, circuits and computers to bear on explaining how brains work and what they do. With CNS, Hopfield and Mead had built a whole new discipline around their visions of mathematically simple neural nets.

I benefitted directly from a major initiative of Hopfield’s. While he was on my committee, Hopfield wrote to the Caltech faculty at large, advising that he would require any grad student getting a PhD with him (e.g., me) to write a single-author paper. Usually, every paper a grad student writes has their advisor’s name on it too. That meant no one was sure whose ideas were whose. Hopfield’s point was that if a student submits a paper entirely on their own, it proves the ideas are theirs. I don’t know how my advisor responded, but I heard the faculty collectively was in a rage: Junior professors needed those extra papers to fill out their publication lists. Publish-or-perish was very real to them, and Hopfield’s principled stand for intellectual integrity made life tougher.

But not for me. Hopfield had “forced” me to do what I always wanted to do anyway: publish my most radical ideas as clearly as possible, in my own voice. So, I wrote a paper pretty much proving that neurons could operate a hundred-fold faster (i.e., 10,000% faster) than anyone thought at the time, which means a hundredfold more bandwidth. That paper started my career as a renegade and bandwidth advocate, a lonely position now utterly validated by research I presented in Tucson this April. Thanks to John Hopfield’s principled vision of science, I was not pressured to water down a good clean idea, which has now been vindicated.

A true physicist

The last conversation I remember with John Hopfield was when I defended my Ph.D. dissertation (the one “disproving” his model of neurons) in the old, storied East Bridge building at Caltech.

This room was nearly sacred to physicists. Steven Hawking had answered questions on these tiles a couple of years before. An alcove across the hall displayed a working micro-motor, less than a tenth of one millimeter on a side, inspired by nano-tech founder (and Nobelist) Richard Feynman. Around the corner were (not-yet-Nobelist) Kip Thorne’s framed bets about black holes. In a tiny room just down the hall, their common advisor John Wheeler had derived quantum mechanics from information theory on a chalkboard — “It from Bit.” On the floor in front of me (I had arrived early) sat his former student Kip Thorne. 

In this hallowed place, I had not expected more questions. I had already been answering questions for hours in the seminar room next door, and I frankly expected Hopfield to say something different. I expected him to say “Congratulations, Dr. Softky.” This was supposed to be the end of my dissertation exam.

“We’d like to ask you some more questions,” Hopfield told me.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Moments before, during my PhD defense, I had proved a popular body of knowledge wrong by invoking undisputed math. The panel had accepted the debunking, as CNS co-founder Carver Mead had accepted it weeks before. But I hadn’t debunked physics itself; I had debunked neuroscience. To my committee, that was a lower form of science, and they wanted to make sure I actually knew physics.

So, Hopfield asked me a question that hit the heart of my dissertation. He drew a little diagram of a circuit on the chalkboard: a battery, a capacitor, a resistor and a tiny neon bulb. He asked me what it would do.

I remembered that little circuit from my childhood as a relaxation oscillator. It charges up until it hits the voltage where the bulb lights and then dumps the charge, starting the cycle anew. In other words, it goes blink-blink-blink. That little circuit was exactly the model of a neuron that my dissertation had disproven (such a circuit can’t produce the “noisy” pulses that real neurons produce). It was also the one Hopfield had inflicted on his students in our very first week of class, to solve, program and simulate with wires. Now I got to tell him how it worked, and didn’t work, as I became one of his own program’s very first PhDs. 

Very few people create whole new forms of science and technology. Hopfield was the first to use laws of physical energy flow to calculate information flow, just like Mead was the first to use laws of physical structure to design integrated circuits.

Combined, those two ideas now let computers act like dumb or clumsy people. Soon, they will also let us know how brilliant, graceful human beings do what we do best.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The EU will delay the start of its new electronic border system, said two people briefed on the discussions, after Germany, France and the Netherlands warned that the bloc’s computer systems were not ready.

The three countries had asked the European Commission to rethink plans to launch the “Entry/Exit System” in a month’s time because of fears that travel would be disrupted and the computer systems overwhelmed.

Germany, France and the Netherlands account for 40 per cent of passenger traffic affected by the new system, and the commission could not proceed with its plans — which had already been delayed several times — without their consent.

At a meeting of EU home affairs ministers on Thursday, home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson told ministers that the start date of November 10 was not feasible, and that the commission would consider a later date, according to two officials familiar with the situation.

The commission also proposed to introduce the system in phases, rather than all at once, said four officials briefed on the talks.

“The commission asked the [council of ministers] to agree to a phased approach. France, Germany and the Netherlands agreed, and the [Hungarian] EU presidency indicated that would be a good way forward. On the basis of that, the commission can now continue to work internally on a solution,” one EU diplomat said.

Airports and airlines have also warned of queues at immigration, as the new system will require non-EU citizens to register their personal details, including fingerprints and facial images, when they first visit the bloc.

The officials said the commission would have to propose a legal change to make the phased-in approach possible, as the current legislation foresees introducing the new biometric border checks everywhere at once.

A targeted change to the legislation would require the EU Council and the European parliament to agree, which could take months. Another option could be for the commission to issue a so-called implementing act to facilitate a gradual start, the officials said.

The legal steps and potential new start date will be discussed next week at a meeting of the managing board of EU-Lisa, the EU agency charged with implementing the new system, the officials said.

Two officials said the delay to the November date meant it was possible that the new system could begin next year.

Germany’s interior ministry last month said the central computer system of EU-Lisa “still lacks the necessary stability and functionality” and therefore the required tests could not be carried out.

The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When selecting platforms, advisers have to reconcile two opposing interests – the needs of the client and the needs of the firm.

Platforms are products for clients, and they are the ones who almost always pay for them. But the reality is that platforms primarily provide services to advisers to help them look after their clients’ portfolios.

The two purposes have different selection criteria. There is clear evidence advisers are shifting their view of platforms and how they choose them, and that they are primarily focusing on their own needs, according to our latest UK Adviser Platforms: Platform Selection report.

This horses-for-courses approach became less relevant as platforms became more similar in their pricing and capabilities

But the good news is that maybe this is in the clients’ best interests after all.

The ‘platform as product’ approach was dominant for many years. Platforms have come in many shapes and sizes, each with their own particular features and even peculiarities.

Charging structures varied – some were great for smaller clients, while others were better for large portfolios or clients with workplace pensions.

Functionality was also different across the market. Some platforms were fine if you stuck to simple transactions, while others could handle more complicated and specialised business.

So, a firm with a range of client profiles typically used a variety of different platforms and selected them on a client-by-client basis.

Platforms may be basically quite similar but they all have their own idiosyncrasies that advisers and support staff need to master

But this horses-for-courses approach became less relevant as platforms became more similar in their pricing and capabilities. Nowadays, maximum platform charges are mostly clustered around the 0.3%-0.35% and they are expected to include almost every functionality.

Differences remain, but they have become less important, except perhaps in a few special situations.

As charges and features have converged and some platforms have become sufficiently cheap and capable for the needs of most clients, it was enough to use just one or perhaps two or three platforms.

Of course, some advisers had long ago decided to focus on a very few platforms because they had low-cost special deals with providers that were competitive for virtually all their clients – or, in a few cases, they simply had a homogeneous clientele.

Unsurprisingly, some players have called for more transparency about special deals and platform charges that mostly remain confidential

Selection on a client-by-client basis may have optimised individual client suitability (at least theoretically) but it bred inefficiencies for the advice firms that used this approach.

Platforms may be basically quite similar but they all have their own idiosyncrasies that advisers and support staff have needed to master.

Using multiple platforms means less expertise within firms in using individual platforms, together with more admin, more staff training and greater danger of mistakes. All these risks and costs are ultimately passed on to clients.

Consumer Duty’s ever-expanding requirements for advice firms is also looming over advisers’ heads. Less efficiency and higher costs limit the scope to charge clients less.

The drive for efficiency has led many advisers to think differently and more strategically about the way they select platforms. The average number of platforms advisers use has declined as they increasingly regard them as the administrative ‘plumbing’ for clients’ investments. So, what’s changed and what has stayed the same?

Advisers’ growing focus on using fewer platforms has yet to reduce platforms numbers in the market

Pricing remains important. Concentrating business onto one or two platforms allows newer platforms with whizzier tech to provide very competitive standard pricing in the mid to low teens or even less. Older platforms can often offer special deals that can match these rates or better them.

Unsurprisingly, some players have called for more transparency about special deals and platform charges that mostly remain confidential.

But clients of firms that cling to the horses-for-courses approach and pay the standard charges are probably missing out.

The adoption of adviser-controlled platforms is another sign of this shift. Larger firms are more likely to go down this route, pioneering greater control of their advice process as well as lower charges, some of which they might pass onto clients.

Another symptom is the acceleration in the volume of transfers between platforms. Over 50% of advisers have transferred assets in the last 12 months – many citing cost and service as primary drivers. Advice firm consolidation is also a powerful push factor.

Advisers’ growing focus on using fewer platforms has yet to reduce platforms numbers in the market. But with more platform switching, winners and losers are bound to emerge – with the inevitable platform consolidation to follow.

Lottie Bussell-Ahern is associate analyst at Platforum