The key influence on financial markets in January has been inflation. Particularly, the US central bank, and its acknowledgement of stronger economic growth and crucially, inflation.

The opening line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, which if written by a wise investor, might have gone on to say you can pick up some attractively priced companies.

It was perhaps surprising to see stock markets end 2021 so positively.  December saw most major developed equity market indices in positive territory. The exception was Japan, which was slightly in the red for the month.

It’s been a challenging couple of years for many and we hope that we have delivered for you and your clients.

Investor bearishness may be important to watch as a leading indicator, but eyes will be firmly fixed on the implications of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 as the world gathers more data on it towards year-end.

November was dominated by events at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP 26). Inevitably, the timetable overran and inevitably there was a compromise at the final stage.

Despite the ups and downs of financial markets, October didn’t turn out too bad after all. Concerns over inflation and the prospect of interest rates rising sooner than expected didn’t stop a positive outcome for most equity markets.

Fuel for Thought At the start of October, we were facing a fuel crisis, one not caused by a lack of the liquid energy but those available to deliver it.  By mid-month, the picture below of my local filling station, shows some degree of a return to normality.  There was no queue, the price not […]

Bond Villains The last day of last month saw the long-awaited release of ‘No Time to Die’, the latest James Bond movie.  Like many, I will be heading off to see it. But September 2021 was a tough month for investors with broader equity markets enduring their worst month since March 2020. The FTSE All-World […]

The US and UK inflation reports have just been released.  US inflation in August was less elevated than anticipated.  Does that mean that US inflation’s recent spike is indeed transitory? 

In a month where the Delta variant occupied more column inches than macro-economic data, for financial markets, it felt like a relatively quiet summer month.

The publication of the UN's Sixth Assessment Report on Climate Change was unequivocal - human action causes climate change and it contained stark warnings for the future. Long term it will have large major effects on the investment industry.