Category: Investment Outlook
The return of regional divergence
7 March 2025At the time of writing, global stocks in aggregate are around where they were a week ago in local currency terms, but the fall in the US Dollar means the Bloomberg World index is about -3% in Sterling terms. ...
Honeymoon ends early
28 February 2025There was no meaningful recovery for US stocks this week, following their cold shower last Friday. By contrast, Europe actually managed to warm a little through this week. Investors’ shift away from the US continues, and markets...
Global politics turn business
21 February 2025We end the week on a slightly downbeat note, not borne out of the astounding shifts in US foreign policy, but because US domestic service sector sentiment seems to have sagged. The US 10-year bond yield has dropped back to below...
Europe First?
14 February 2025Another dramatic week in global politics had rare and fascinating effects on capital markets. The Trump administration’s apparent plan to negotiate a Ukraine peace deal without European input, but leave European nations to foot...
Up and down and on and off
7 February 2025The week began with, potentially, a very distasteful pill to swallow. On Friday evening, just before 6pm GMT and after European markets had closed, Trump announced another 10% of tariffs on China and new 25% tariffs on Mexico...
AI upset challenges market status quo
31 January 2025It has been another interesting week in markets, although for different reasons than recently. Most of the major regional stock indices have performed well, but global equities are down in aggregate. This is largely down to the...
Trump trade still on?
24 January 2025Capital markets were a sea of green in Donald Trump’s first week back in office. Investors’ serenity stands in contrast to the rhetoric and early flurry of policy from the US president. We have said before that markets may...
Calmer markets ahead of Trump inauguration
17 January 2025With global stocks bouncing back over 2%, this week has been the best of the year! UK investors did not even have to rely on a weak pound to bolster Sterling-based returns. French stocks gained over 4%, while smaller cap stocks...
UK bond yield surge – more than meets the eye
10 January 2025Bond market woes took centre stage again this week. Much of this was driven by the strength of the US economy, as shown by today’s strong employment data and signs that US consumer services are powering ahead (although, interestingly,...
Fed spoils the Christmas party
20 December 2024Not only did the ‘Santa Rally’ not arrive this year, but global stocks had a notable sell-off on Wednesday night. This came after the US Federal Reserve (Fed) told investors not to expect many interest rate cuts in 2025, a...