Happy New Year Next week, we will bring you a full account of asset class performance for December and for 2024. In the meantime, we show various asset classes (some of which overlap each other), so readers can get an idea of which areas did best and worst. December...

Why are markets so calm? Raised tensions in the Middle East dominated the headlines last week. Capital markets are obviously not the most humanly important consideration in this situation, but our job as investment managers is to think about how they might react....

Nervous markets ahead of second pivot Capital markets have started September rather despondently. It feels similar to (though not nearly as bad as) the sell-off that started August, after which stock values quickly recovered. There were risks and headwinds back then,...

Balancing acts Last week was a flat week for global stock values, but with a fair amount of dispersion. US returns were once again weighed down by tech, but the UK and Europe were up over 1% on Friday. The overall sluggish picture seems a strange reaction to...

Late Summer heatwave Global stocks continued their climb higher until the latter part of last week. The rise up until last Wednesday had shown remarkably steady gains in daily terms. When you put that together with gains over the last few weeks, equity returns have...

Tornado rather than hurricane After stocks sank in early August, we warned that volatility could ripple on, and the market storm turn into a full-blown hurricane. But last week saw a remarkable dying-down of the volatility, like a whirlwind that passes in an hour:...