Category: Investment Outlook
Christmas tidings of comfort, if not joy
17 December 2021Dear 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 7 January 2022. Looking back, the year has exceeded some expectations and underdelivered on others....
Plan B or not Plan B? That is the question
10 December 2021Equity 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-boosted...
The pre-Christmas ‘quiz’ that not many want to play
3 December 2021As 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 this week, central bank and government policy, inflation pressures from...
Dollar strength and divergence caps a dull week for investors
19 November 2021Despite 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 buoyant jobs market is encouraging...
New COVID variant flattens ‘Black Friday’ feeling
19 November 2021It’s been 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 Black...
Central banks struggle with messaging
12 November 2021Following 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
5 November 2021October’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...
Bond markets give central bankers a telling off
29 October 2021Capital markets enjoyed another good week, although with one notable difference – this time bond investors were allowed to join in. Just as energy prices started stabilising, corporate earnings results proved less supportive...
Confused or determined central bankers?
22 October 2021Capital markets continued over the 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 announcements,...
Have we passed the peak of supply disruption?
15 October 2021Last 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 suburbs...