“Events, dear boy, events.” This famous quote is often attributed to former prime minister Harold Macmillan after being asked what could knock his government off course. This could be a timely quote right now, as the horrific events in Ukraine look set to impact on consumers and businesses across the world. The UK government will […]
Overall Market Backdrop, February February marks the second month running that global equities have seen negative returns. The previous downward pressure coming from monetary policy tightening and inflation concerns have been seen to be trumped by the ongoing war in eastern Europe. Negative equity returns were not the only thing that remained persistent throughout February, […]
Current situation On the 22nd of February when Putin announced that Russia recognises the two regions of Luhansk and Donetsk as separatist governments, this was the first proclamation of war which has now escalated to troops driving deeper into the country having attacked Ukraine from 3 directions. The world has been taken by surprise by […]
January’s headlines were dominated not only by reports of lockdown parties in Downing Street, but also by growing tension on Ukraine’s border. Russian President Vladimir Putin massed his tanks on the border, with the Chair of the Commons Defence Committee saying that an invasion was “imminent and inevitable”, and a top Polish official said that […]
It is always tempting at the start of a year to look ahead and see what the next 12 months might have in store – and with technology changing more and more quickly, we thought we’d take a look at what could lie ahead in the digital and virtual worlds. Increased use of Artificial Intelligence […]
In the first week of the New Year there was a story that was widely reported in many of the papers. ‘More and more people pushed into higher rate tax bracket’ ran the headline with – according to which paper you read – either 1m or 1.2m more people are set to pay the 40% […]
Overall Market Backdrop, December In January, equities in developed markets have continued to fall throughout the month as concerns around monetary policy tightening, inflation, tensions in eastern Europe and a speculated earlier balance sheet runoff have remained prevalent. Volatility finally proved too hot to handle in January with the VIX hitting highs of 31%, offsetting […]
Despite the pandemic, 2020 was a good year for the majority of stock markets we report on in the Bulletin. We wrote that a year ago and – irrespective of all the ups and downs it brought – 2021 was another good year for world stock markets. All but one of the markets we cover […]
Two years ago working from home was a rare luxury: something you might do as an occasional one-off or as you recovered from an illness. Then came the pandemic and suddenly WFH – it soon became an acronym – went mainstream. As the vaccine roll-out accelerated people gradually returned to the office – but there […]
We don’t want to sit behind screens anymore. According to a recent BBC article, ever-increasing numbers of us have reassessed our work and our lives post pandemic, and we want to work outside. Quoted in the article David Rochefort, a former IT worker, said the pandemic made him want to do something ‘astronomically different.’ “My […]