Reeves Got the Reprieve. The Boardrooms Got Busy.

This week, the IMF threw Reeves a lifeline — and the high street threw it back. IMF UK Growth Upgrade Is Reeves's Fragile Lifeline sized up the Fund's 1% UK growth call, the first upgrade Reeves has had all year. UK GDP Up 0.6% in Q1 — What It Means for Your Money broke down the print that drove it — a Q1 beat nobody on Threadneedle Street saw coming. Then UK Retail Sales Data Today Plunges 1.3% Below Forecast flagged the contradiction underneath: April's 1.3% drop, with consumer confidence at a two-year low. UK Unemployment Climbs, Vacancies at 5-Year Low surfaced the labour market hollowing out — 5% jobless, youth rate at 16.2%, 296,000 under-35 jobs gone since October 2024. UK Property Taxes Smash World Record at 3.7% of GDP called out the structural drag, with Britain now the developed world's heaviest property-tax economy. And Reeves Unveils £555m 'Summer Savings' Package mapped her political response — free buses, frozen fuel, and a stealth tax on energy giants to pay for it.

On the corporate desk, the FY26 prints came in loud — and split the room. Dr Martens Kicks Down Costs — Shares Take Off ran the turnaround tape: profit up 270% to £32.7m, shares +8.5%, shoe sales up 19%. M&S Cyber Attack Costs £131m as Profit Falls 29% put a number on the cost of getting hacked — £131m off the FY26 print, profit down 29% to £365m, even as sales still grew 25%. Banking split the same way: Monzo's Profit Rockets as User Base Tops 15m wrote up the fintech +44% to £87.3m on 15.2m users, while Starling Bank Profit Slips 3% as Rates Bleed £52m walked through the rate-cut squeeze biting the other side of the trade. National Grid Bets £70bn on the Grid pulled apart the utility's five-year pledge across UK and US networks — profit £4.2bn, dividend up 3.8%. And across the Atlantic, Nvidia's $81.6bn Q1 Sets Up AI Capex Peak Test framed the AI cycle's hardest test yet, while SpaceX IPO to Smash Records — BlackRock Eyes Stake teed up the 11 June Nasdaq listing at a $2tn valuation, with BlackRock weighing in for billions.

Reeves got the reprieve. The boardrooms got the headlines. Now to the rest of the issue.

The UK economy grew faster than expected in Q1 2026 — at exactly the moment war broke out in Iran. UK GDP rose 0.6% across the first three months of the year, with March alone adding 0.3% despite the conflict starting then. The ONS said consumers and businesses brought forward spending in fear of higher fuel and food prices. The number beats forecasts. But the IMF, Bank of England and most City economists agree Q2 is where the squeeze shows up. So what does 0.6% UK GDP growth mean for your pay, your taxes, and the next year?

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has unveiled a £555m “Great British Summer Savings” package — free child buses, a fuel-duty freeze, food-tariff cuts — funded by a stealth tax on energy giants’ foreign branches.

The UK property tax burden just topped the global league table — and it’s still rising. Britain runs 3.7% of GDP in property taxes, ahead of France and Canada at 3.4% each.

In Q1 2026, the non-traded BDC market hit $20.8B in redemption requests — most investors received roughly half of what they asked for. Moody's revised the U.S. BDC sector outlook to Negative. Investors who thought they owned liquid private credit found out their fund manager decided whether they could get out.

On Percent's marketplace that same quarter: new issuances, scheduled payments, and a 0.44% lifetime net loss rate on asset-based deals that's held since inception.†

The difference is structural. BDCs often own concentrated corporate loans with quarterly redemption windows that close at the manager's discretion. Percent finances specialty lenders against pools of performing receivables — diversified, overcollateralized, short duration.

Track record through 3/31/26:†

See what private credit built for individual investors looks like.

^{Alternative investments are speculative. No assurance can be given that investors will receive a return of their capital. Secondary market transactions are subject to availability and issuer approval; liquidity is not guaranteed. †Past performance is not indicative of future results. Terms apply.}

SpaceX IPO is about to smash records. Elon Musk is pulling the long-awaited flotation forward to 11 June, with Nasdaq trading on 12 June under ticker SPCX. The valuation target: $1.75tn (~£1.3tn) to $2tn (~£1.5tn) — potentially raising $75bn (~£56.0bn) to $80bn (~£59.8bn) and comfortably surpassing Saudi Aramco’s record-breaking 2019 float. BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) is reportedly weighing billions through its actively managed funds.

Gold barely moved on Wednesday — and that is the story. Spot gold sat at $4,480.57 an ounce, broadly unchanged, while gold futures slipped 1.6% to $4,482.80. The cross-currents should have moved it harder. Thirty-year US Treasury yields just soared to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.

Strategy just plunged another $2bn (~£1.5bn) into Bitcoin. It bought 24,869 more coins at an average $80,985 — well above its own lifetime average of $75,700. The company is not buying low. It is buying constantly. Total Strategy Bitcoin holdings now sit at 843,738 BTC, worth $63.87bn (~£47.6bn) at cost, equivalent to roughly 4% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist.