Waiting for a Santa Rally

5 December 2025

Capital markets felt a little better this week, but with emphasis on “a little”. Global stocks gained incrementally through the week, putting most of the November market downdraft behind them. Underlying these moves is a genuine...

Ripe for a rotation

28 November 2025

Another topsy-turvy week ends with more volatility and lower markets. Stocks were boosted midweek, after investor darling Nvidia reported even better than optimistically expected corporate earnings growth for the previous and...

Open and shut

21 November 2025

Stock markets rallied in the early part of this week, but sold off on Thursday and into Friday. At the time of writing, we are at or even below last Friday’s levels in most major markets. The lacklustre performance might seem...

Liquidity, actually

12 November 2025

After a pleasingly strong October, it was a tough first week of November in capital markets. Stocks sold off 2-3% virtually everywhere, and the biggest tech stocks were particularly vulnerable. Media commentary put this down to...

Faster change, stronger growth, bigger risks

4 November 2025

Stock markets mostly continued their upward march this week, but the underlying picture is little changed from last Friday. Global growth and corporate profits look decent, geopolitics is not getting out of hand, but the pace...

Autumn but no fall

28 October 2025

Capital markets started the week calmer than they have been, and are ending with yet more all-time-highs. However, investors remain uneasily positive. The mid-week saw more wobbles, and this patch of increased volatility could...

Bounce and brace

22 October 2025

Global risk assets sagged this week. Initially, stocks bounced a little from last Friday’s US sell-off, after Trump appeared to do a customary TACO turn on Sunday. But, investment portfolios are now closer to where we started...

Volatility on the horizon

16 October 2025

Stock markets keep pushing at all-time highs earlier this week, but with less enthusiasm than a few weeks ago. Then, late on Friday, a renewed Trump tariff threat against China’s rare earth export restrictions was enough to...

Nothing shuts down the stock markets

8 October 2025

Global stocks bumped up this week, recovering all of last week’s losses and then some. That is despite a US government shutdown that shows no sign of being quickly resolved. Previous funding gaps have hurt the world’s largest...

Running out of steam

29 September 2025

Global stock prices have dropped this week, with most regional markets ending down. Some of this is end-of-quarter rebalancing of institutional portfolios. Institutional investors typically adjust their portfolios back to the...