Market vertigo galore Last week we wrote how the ‘sell in May and go away’ maxim has historically not shown much merit for investors. At the end of last week, some of our readers may have looked back at those sentences ruefully. Markets have certainly lost a bit of...

Sell in May and go away? The traditional stock market adage of ‘sell in May and go away’ is back in vogue again this year, after the first four months of 2021 brought healthy returns to investors with equity exposure. Of course, historic return observations have...

Doubling of earnings leaves markets cold After the previous week’s lull in global equity markets, most regions recovered their previous highs last week, albeit in somewhat lacklustre trading patterns. Just as there were several reasons why markets were in a bad mood...

‘Risk on’ pauses while the real world keeps accelerating Equity markets finally paused in their upward trend last week, with the most speculative assets like Bitcoin experiencing their first serious setback since February. It was hard to pin the cause on any one...

New bond news gives green light for equity investors We usually start by summarising equity market action over the course of the past week. Last week, it was developments in the bond markets that may be of more significance for investors, over the fact that equities...

Bond markets signal economic optimism Following a strong first quarter for equity investors worldwide, the second quarter is off to a good start as well, with most global stock markets already up by a few percentage points. While the sense that stock markets are...

In this market update, Lothar Mentel – lead investment adviser to Cambridge - discusses the potential market risk of the recent losses of Greensill, Archegos and Credit Suisse, residual market fear of bond yields, and the use of Bitcoin as an asset by fund managers....

The first quarter of 2021 was no April fool The fact is that the first quarter of 2021 has brought genuine good news for UK-based investors with exposure to global stock markets. Equity markets have generally resumed an upward trajectory, while low risk assets,...

Moving on – towards a post pandemic world It has been another week of markets feeling on edge, without going anywhere. Markets seem to have caught a bit of worry about the passage of growth, oddly just as the wider populace gets more confident and the recent headwind...

Tug of war – bonds vs. equities This week marks the anniversary of the turning point of the 2020 COVID stock market crash. Investors looking at their one-year portfolio returns may well be astonished to find double-digit return figures, ranging from around 15% for...

Recalibrations Stock markets around the world have had another choppy week, but this time there was more up than down across the board and bonds yields stopped their upwards trend – at least for a while. The general upward trend notwithstanding, there was a lot of...

Stock markets are finding they cannot have it both ways Another week of bond market price falls has pushed ten-year government bond yields upwards everywhere except Japan. The US ten-year yield experienced the biggest rise of the developed world, up almost 20 basis...

Earnings look set to stabilise wobbling markets Last year, equity markets started to wobble around this time. For example, on 19 February 2020, the NASDAQ 100 closed at an all-time high of 9718.73 before sliding back as the far-reaching implications of the pandemic...

In this investment update, Lothar Mentel, Cambridge’s Lead Investment Adviser, discusses why bond yields matter to equity markets. 

One year on – who would have thought One year ago, on 19th February 2020, stock markets hit their pre-pandemic high. Over the five weeks that followed, markets plunged in the most extreme global market crash ever known, as the world accepted that COVID-19 was a threat...

No UK double dip, but much talk of bubbles ‘Worst recession in 300 years’ was how UK media framed Friday’s release of UK GDP growth data for the last quarter of 2020. They were also quick to point out that the -9.9% full-year number was far worse than any other major...

In this investment update, Lothar Mentel, Cambridge’s Lead Investment Adviser, discusses January's populist action and Cambridge’s positioning to take advantage of the vaccine dividend during 2021.