A glass half-full half year Halfway through 2023 and, all in all, things have been fair-to-middling for markets. We’ll have a more detailed run-through of asset class performances in next week’s Weekly, but an assessment of the changing economic and markets landscape...

Markets catching up with reality Following three weeks of ‘not a lot of news’ being good news for stock markets, bad news dented investor sentiment last week. This has coincided with some reversal of global liquidity, as the US government is once again stepping up...



Market conundrum amid volatile growth Last week saw equity markets move higher yet, despite central bank hawkishness. We had another 0.25% rate rise from the European Central Bank (ECB) and, although the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) left rates unchanged,...

Immaculate disinflation sentiment cheers investors Another positive week in global stock markets, which seemed unremarkable given it has been fairly good since the beginning of May. However, looking more closely – as we do – two market dynamics tell us more market...

Markets take good news in their stride Last week, we noted how the absence of specifically good news meant markets reacted more negatively than expected to the relatively low probability of a US debt default. We pointed out that the more notable event of the week had...

Debt ceiling angst or simply lack of good news? Compared to the previous week, markets did not really get much ‘new’ news to digest, and yet last week brought a renewed bout of equity market volatility. Given bond yields experienced even larger moves (up), ...

Big tech stocks increase is 'artificial' Last week we wrote that markets were facing growing risks. Since then, and at the time of writing, equity markets have generally headed higher. Japan has been enjoying a particularly good run with the Nikkei 225 making gains...

Trust the MPC to rain on May’s parade After a period where it felt like there was a shortage of news, things are hotting up. Both equity and bond markets are bearing up well generally but, in our estimation, underlying risks have increased since May started. After the...

A small predicament Last week’s investor focus was dominated by May’s central bank rate decisions, with the weaker spots in US (regional bank) markets continuing to rumble just beneath the surface. Australia’s Reserve Bank made the start on Tuesday, surprising most...

Inflation running out of money Over the past few weeks, we have observed how markets have been hanging in a fine balance, as evidenced by the rather directionless and decreasingly volatile bond, equity and currency markets. We are not the only ones who see it that...

Prospects of a warm spring Another relatively quiet week meant a generally benign environment for risk assets. In our last Weekly, we discussed how low-volatility markets tend to rise, which prompted some questions from readers, so we’ll explain our thoughts later in...

Return of calm bodes well for spring Easter lies behind us and the second quarter of the year ahead. Considering how unnerving the first three months of the year were, UK investors in globally diversified multi-asset portfolios (akin to the ones we manage) have not...

Spring of hope following winter of doom? This year began in anticipation of imminent global recession, but imminent did not mean immediate, and as the second quarter gets under way, the chances of a global recession may be less now than they were. The chart below is...

Markets put bank stress behind, but challenges remain The first quarter of 2023 is now behind us, and while March ran the whole gamut of emotions for investors,we end the month (and quarter) on a fairly positive and quiet note. For the average UK investor who holds...

Swiss parochialism backfires March continues to provide investors with the opposite of the ‘steady-as-she-goes’ environment of January and February. News last week of consumer price inflation in the UK rising again, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and the Bank of England...

Bank stress testing - live Unease about the state of markets had been palpable since more or less the beginning of the year, as noted repeatedly on these pages over the past months. Following the run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week, financial system fear spread...