Like the UK, Latin America has suffered greatly during the pandemic – perhaps even more so. The World Bank estimates that regional GDP may slip by as much as 8%, with more than four million…
The Dollar May Be Down But Is It Out?
So far in 2018 we have tried to be fairly flexible with our thinking on the US Dollar. Fundamentally, we could quite easily build a bullish case as much as we could build a bearish…
Week in Review: One in the eye
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” said Samuel Johnson. The legendary lexicographer might have been speaking of bankers (both male and female), as comments this week indicated that reports…
Underlying fragility of the US corporate sector For Professional Investors Only
Written by Mike Riddell As we’ve mentioned in recent months, total risk premia on US corporate bonds is at its lowest level ever. Meanwhile, the debt that US corporates have loaded onto their balance sheets has steadily…
Video: Introducing Witan Investment Trust
Introduction to Witan Investment Trust. Although our roots are old, our strategy is anything but. This short video introduction to Witan Investment Trust explains the trust’s key strategies and multi manager approach.
2018 – a year for active management
2017 saw a previously US-centric and relatively anaemic economic recovery from the financial crisis broaden out and gain vigour. The Trump presidency has so far proved to be mostly bun and no beef, while the…
Watch the Bond Markets as Pivotal Areas are Being Tested
Some key levels are definitely in sight for the bond markets. We will have to just wait patiently to see whether yields break out on the upside (which of course means bond prices going lower),…
Gilts – The Bear Market has Begun
The Gilt index is an important benchmark for most UK fixed income investors, whatever their risk appetite. 2017 was a year of modest returns (+2% for the iBoxx Gilt index) but the fact is that…
Week in Review: The only way is up
It’s all getting a bit tiresome, isn’t it? Many global stock markets hit yet another succession of fresh highs this week. The strongest returns came from Asian markets, with the MSCI Pacific Index up 1.4%.…
Seven scenarios for seven stockmarkets
By Ben Kumar, Investment Manager, Seven Investment Management Global growth can easily be described as ‘humming’ and the world seems to have confidence in that growth, be that trade led or domestically driven through…
Why should you invest in the FTSE All-Share Index vs. only the FTSE 100?
Whether an individual share turns out to be a good investment can depend on the performance of a company’s business, economic fundamentals, valuation, geography, dividend policy, currency, politics, regulation, disruption, and many more variables. And…
Boom times for the global economy
BUT INVESTORS KNOW THAT. THEY HAVE BEEN BUYING THE RUMOUR OF STRONG GROWTH AND EARNINGS SO MAY SELL THE DELIVERY OF IT IN COMING WEEKS. WE NEED A NEW RUMOUR TO BUY. THAT RUMOUR COULD…
Active or passive – which are the best performing funds?
Will 2018 be the year of the active fund manager? Commentators love to claim that actively managed fund performance generally fails to justify the higher annual management fees the fund managers charge for their stock…
Why it’s vital to keep an eye on worldwide and UK inflation rates
Day by day, a plethora of official economic statistics is released, building into a vast data set. In just one month, from mid-October to mid-November, Bloomberg recorded 585 major data releases for G8 economies, with…
How might Jeremy Corbyn and a Labour government affect investments?
For a while in 2017, it seemed as if the worldwide tide of populism, epitomised by Donald Trump, had reached its high-water mark. In a string of elections across Europe, the populist right and the…
Investing in artificial intelligence companies
In investment terms, the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) stretches beyond laboratories of scientists trying to develop neural networks. It now includes machine learning (a field of computer science where computers learn without being programmed),…
New technology in the emerging markets
There are still some emerging markets that engage in mass export of commodities and cheap factories, but they are fewer than before. There are also enough large EM countries with a technological footprint to make…
Is it time for patient investors to increase commodity exposure?
Let’s start with a bullish thought to begin 2018. We, among others, have recently been pointing to the potential for higher inflation in 2018. To be clear, we are not calling for a massive shift…
Week in Review: global equities hit record highs
The new year began pretty much as the old year ended, with shares continuing to chart a seemingly inexorable upward path. Stock market indices touched record highs in the first three business days of 2018.…