The S&P 500 index has finised 2013 at 1,848 and presently sits at 1,855, broadly flat so far in 2014. It has been healthcare and utilities, overcoming weakness in telecoms, energy and industrials.

The sell off in the markets was short lived as the major stock indices recorded heavyweight gains yesterday. The change in sentiment was triggered by news from the Ukraine President Vladimir Putin ordered troops back to base after the completion of military exercises.

The Russian stock market dropped around 10% on the news with the FTSE currently 60 points lower at 6,744. Gold futures are higher by $18 to 1,344 dollars per ounce and Brent crude was up $1.7 to just shy of $111 dollars per barrel.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway released its annual letter to shareholders over the weekend and confirmed it had made $19.5 billion (£11.6 billion) in 2013, up from $14.8 billion (£8.8 billion) in 2012.

Walking in the City of London right now you feel like this is the midst of another boom. Cranes are everywhere, new skyscapers are popping up everywhere. The newspapers are full of stories of booming house prices, gazumping, a glut of foreign buyers. News this week that mortgage lending is back to pre-financial crisis levels. It all feels so familiar to where we were before the boom and bust of the sub-prime crisis in 2008/2009.

A further crisis of confidence in the new virtual currency of Bitcoin was triggered yesterday when one of the leading exchanges, Mt. Gox went offline and removed its entire Twitter history. On other Bitcoin exchanges, the price of a bitcoin was down heavily as investor fears mounted that the problems of Mt Gox were the tip of the iceberg and potentially even the end of the emerging currency.

Yesterday the report entitled UKCS Maximising recovery review: final report authored by Sir Ian Wood was published.. The report calls for a new regulator to be established separate from the existing DECC (Department of Energy and Climate change) to manage oil and gas assets in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS).

After the huge growth in the fine wine market in 2011 many investors in alternatives were rubbing their hands with glee. The peak of the fine wine market coincided with the October 2010 Hong Kong auction hosted by Sotheby’s in which three bottles of Châteaux Lafite-Rothschild 1869 were sold at a price of $232,692 a bottle – 29,000 a glass.

Facebook has just announced its acquision for WhatsApps for $19 billion. The deal is the most expensive acquisition of a private venture capital-backed company yet. Facebook is buying WhatsApp for $12 billion in stock and $4 billion in cash with another $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that will vest over the next four years.

Peston highlights that since 2008, “China has built a new skyscraper every five days, more than 30 airports, metros in 25 cities, the three longest bridges in the world, more than 6,000 miles of high speed railway lines, 26,000 miles of motorway…..”. This explosion of building has been financed by a surge in lending by Chinese banks.