January déjà vu Although 2021 did not close with another ‘Santa rally’, December – and the year as a whole – generated some pleasing returns for diversified investment portfolios. Compared to 2020 (another strong year in performance terms), equity investors fared...

Christmas tidings of comfort, if not joy Dear readers, this week’s edition will be the final one for 2021 and we look forward to welcoming you back when we next publish on 10 January 2022. Looking back, the year has exceeded some expectations and underdelivered on...



The Plan B or not Plan B? That is the question Equity markets bounced strongly on Tuesday. The catalyst was a flip in the coronavirus narrative that went: “the new variant is as contagious as the very first, but much less damaging. It confers some immunity. Triple...

The pre-Christmas ‘quiz’ that not many want to play As the end of the investing year draws nearer, markets remain on edge, questioning everything that it thought it knew the answers to only very recently. But last week, central bank and government policy, inflation...

New COVID variant flattens ‘Black Friday’ feeling It was a Thanksgiving week of mixed news. The European COVID case surge was surpassed in negative impact by the fears of a new variant emanating from South Africa. US markets hit new highs just before the holiday, but...



Dollar strength and divergence caps a dull week for investors Despite the negative news flow, be it COVID or politics, UK consumers are proving their resilience once again, with both October retail demand and domestic consumer sentiment pointing up. Perhaps the...

Central banks struggle with messaging Following five weeks of global equity markets inching higher every week, risk asset markets slowed even though, for once, economic data was actually offering reasons to believe that the worst of supply chain constraints may be...

No tantrum over this taper October’s positivity across global stock markets spilled over into the first week of November. That is with the exception of China, which appears to be increasingly isolating itself from the rest of the world. Not only was its leader very...

Bond markets give central bankers a telling off Last week was generally positive for capital markets, although with one notable difference – this time bond investors were allowed to join in. Just as energy prices started stabilising, corporate earnings results proved...

Confused or determined central bankers? Capital markets continued over the past week to recover just as gradually from the September/early October downdraft as they declined then. Many commentators put it down to the continued strong Q3 corporate earnings...

Have we passed the peak of supply disruption? Last week we noted that October had picked up for investors where September had left off, namely equities slowly climbing down from the heights gained over the summer. As petrol availability returned even to London’s...



Economy hits an air pocket October has carried on where September left off, with quite a bit of daily up and down for markets, but with a slight downwards trend. We deliver our end-of-month review of September in this week’s second article. For UK readers, the lack of...

Rising yields are back The energy bottlenecks we wrote about recently became rather more personal for the large proportion of the UK population that are motorists. In fairness, the UK’s petrol station forecourt crisis has little to do with rising energy prices around...

Wall of worry time The UK received worrying economic news on multiple fronts last week, with several utility companies going under and the prospect of steep rises in winter heating costs, petrol stations running out of fuel, gaps on supermarket shelves, and the Bank...



End of the re‐opening honeymoon We are halfway through September and investors have not experienced a continuation of the positive returns picture of the summer months. This is despite COVID restrictions gradually lifting (not only in the UK) and an on‐track economic...