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...



Market wrestling For weeks we have been talking of an equity market that is relatively expensive in comparison to bond markets, especially government bond markets. Below is a chart which tracks the dividend yield of the FTSE 100 (calculated from 12-month trailing...

  

Mood swings For some time, bond and equity markets have been experiencing teenager-like mood swings. As February ended and March began, government bond yields continued their march higher to levels last seen last autumn, when stock markets tumbled as a result. Yet,...

Balancing acts Last week saw global stock markets give back a portion of the gains made in the first few days of February. Still, since the start of the year, global stocks have made a total return of around 5% in £-sterling terms (Source: Bloomberg). Over the past...

A dose of realism creeps in Last week, the UK’s leading stock market index, the FTSE 100, finally passed the psychologically important threshold of 8,000. And yet, after the strong start to the year in January, February has brought consolidation rather than a...

A challenging week brings investors back down to earth Overall, UK bond and equity markets slipped back last week, despite the FTSE 100 edging higher until Thursday lunchtime when it reached a new all-time price high. Since the previous week’s US employment data, the...

Are central banks transforming from hawks into doves? Last week was like the other four weeks of 2023: dominated by central bank action, inflation, and despondency over the UK economy. Meanwhile, stock and bond markets stayed buoyant. The monthly US jobs report was a...



Goldilocks in the air Recent macroeconomic data releases across the western world report declining rates of inflation and no longer overheating (but nevertheless still positive) economic growth. In the US, the important milestone of the rate of personal consumption...

Slowing growth throws markets into a bind Last Monday we wrote that markets were rising because bad economic news was good news in terms of lessening concerns over interest rate rises, beyond what is already expected and therefore priced in. Last week, various...

Football fever saves UK from recession The new year is proving to be a happy one for almost all asset classes and regions. The FTSE 100’s intraday all-time high of 7903.50 was less than 100 points away on Friday, and we were closer than we were the previous week. The...

January surprises “Welcome to 2023” said the note on the restaurant door. The door was shut, the lights were off, and another note explained that rail strikes meant staff and customers were unable to get there. All the venues in this City-of-London street were closed...