As the world’s economies recover from the pandemic, there seems to be one spectre that is haunting them all: the threat of inflation. In China, factory gate prices are at their highest level for 26 years. Early in November, it was reported that US inflation had risen to 6.2%, rising at its fastest rate for […]
Overall Market Backdrop, November Equities once again fell victim to a new Covid variant; Omicron caused increased fears in investors and many of the gains made by equity markets at the beginning of the month were wiped out. As anticipated, investor fears dripped over to the bond sector and many of the yields decreased as […]
October was the month which brought us Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s second Budget of the year. Normally that would make the headlines, but October was also a month when the world gave us plenty to worry about. With factors such as rising energy prices and supply chain issues impacting economies worldwide, the UK’s economic outlook may […]
Overall Market Backdrop, October Strong performance was the order of the day for October for US equities, while other global developed equity markets posted positive returns with many equity indices hitting new highs during the course of the month. While it was all smooth sailing for equity markets, fixed-income had a slightly bumpy ride […]
You will no doubt be aware that September was a month when shortages dominated the headlines. As we will see below, it was by no means a problem confined to the UK: sadly it does not look like a problem that will quickly disappear. We have, for example, written previously about the shortage of semiconductor […]
On Sunday September 26th Germany went to the polls in the first election of the post-Angela Merkel era. ‘Mutti,’ as she is widely known, has been German Chancellor – and, by definition, Europe’s premier politician – since 2005. But she stepped down as leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) in 2018 and made it known […]
Overall Market Backdrop, September Global equities struggled and saw moderate negative returns for September, this was mainly driven by concerns about a peak in the rate of economic growth and rising inflation. The US bond market saw yields gradually increase throughout the month, increasing by 0.22% and ending on 1.52%. Value was the best-performing Factor […]
Introduction If there was one word that characterised July, it was tension. Tension between Beijing and Hong Kong, tension between China and the US, and tension between China and the UK over Huawei. The UK made a citizenship offer to up to 3m Hong Kong residents and duly suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. […]
With many furloughs coming to an end and an increasing number of redundancies being announced, the Bank of Mum and Dad is being asked to step in on a regular basis to help its adult children with their financial commitments. Parents are seeing their children’s debt escalate, which is often primarily due to rent payments. […]
Overall Market Backdrop, June The US and UK equity markets saw a volatile month with initial gains from the start of the month melting away by the end. Emerging markets and Asian markets performed well in the month with returns of 7.4% and 8.5% respectively. US Treasury yields saw a month of drama. The first […]