The fuel injected Brexiter comments on the EU's vaccine problems miss many points.

[thread] on "sovereignty"

"Some fears have been expressed that if Britain joins the Common Market she will cease to be able to formulate her own foreign policy and will lose her separate identity. "

1/ Quick thread. At the end of the third week of Brexit being "done", I can only say that I'm exhausted.

Immediate pressures on companies who have been trading goods have been on grappling with all of the new customs and regulatory requirements.

2/ It's clear that agrifood businesses have been the hardest hit due to the SPS checks and other requirements.

But for others, the shift from a distributor model to importer/exporter has been a challenge. This hasn't been helped by certain IT system not working as planned.

3/ So are these "teething problems"? Companies are grappling with the new systems & formalities.

Some are, but many others aren't.

Worth noting that freight volumes are still below average. But stockpiles are running low, coming weeks are going to be interesting.

4/ Two issues that are immediately facing many businesses that won't be addressed by sorting this teething period.

First, many businesses are facing the largest shift in their cost base in a generation.

5/ This comes from the cost of dealing with the customs procedures, upgrading IT systems to manage the new requirements, setting up European operating centres to comply with regulatory requirements, new immigration costs, the list goes on.

Many bearish sentiments across the mortgage sector because they believe companies won't succeed as much when rate finally go back up (3 maybe 4 years from now). Which makes sense except for $GHIV and here's why. In 2016 Brexit came & rates went down which lead to huge success...

in mortgages. Business was great for many companies but then in ‘17 and ‘18, rates went up. What happened you might ask? A lot of people got compressed, margins got compressed, rates went down, & people struggled in the mortgage market...

Well UWM ( $GHIV ) compound annual growth rate, from ‘16 to ’18, was 28%. Companies that focused on refi struggled, so obviously a very successful company like Rocket or Quicken, they went down 14% in compound annual growth rate in those years...

$GHIV actually grew, and so did their profits, so the opportunity to continue to grow in all cycles is a big differentiator for UWM, and the broker channel versus a lot of our competitors. When rates rise, it's actually even better for $GHIV (UWM)..

If rates stay low, great UWM will continue to crush but when the rates rise, they will continue to steal even more market share because of how they operate in the mortgage sector. People also talk about the speed in closing a loan & that other competitors are faster...

NEW: 🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚛🚚🍤🐟🚢🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨 Building of Brexit border posts faces delays via...industry calling for delay to July 1 U.K. #brexit border roll out - my latest via ⁦@FinancialTimes⁩

This goes back to last year, when UK gov got £430m of bids for new Border Control Posts and only funded £194m worth - and those bids that won took a 33pc 'haircut'. Result, everyone unhappy - those that got nothing, and those that won, got not enough

The result is that ports looking to build BCPs to accommodate new border coming in from July 1 say they haven't got enough money. They want either delays to border on July 1, or flexible implementation. /3

So as @timgmorris of @UKMajorPorts group tells me: “We need urgent action from the government to show flexibility either on the July 1 deadline or what is required on that date....or accept potentially serious implications for traffic flows this summer." /4

@timgmorris @UKMajorPorts As @richard_bpa of @britishports says “There is now a real danger that customs infrastructure won’t be ready by July in some ports and we’re urging ministers to take a pragmatic approach to ensure that goods can continue moving at those locations,” /5