Category: Investment Outlook
Markets recalibrate to Trump 2.0
1 July 2025What a week. No sooner had the US shocked the world by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities than President Trump declared a ceasefire and subsequent end of the Israel-Iran war. More astonishing still was that the Israeli and Iranian...
The risks are real – but priced in
27 June 2025We have, unsurprisingly, had a bit of a down week. The Israel-Iran war has pushed up oil prices about 4%, with a slight knock to equities. The ‘safe haven’ dollar has risen but only slightly, up 0.5% against a stable sterling....
Calm but not comfortable
16 June 2025This week’s political events did not disturb markets until Israel’s military action on Iran on Friday morning. Even then, the reactions were relatively muted. In the days prior, Brent crude oil rose from $66 per barrel to...
Summer starts with less spring
6 June 2025This week, a number of the world’s stock markets edged closer to all-time highs. Thursday’s Musk-Trump spat weighed on Tesla shares, though, and therefore the US’ S&P 500 (and the ‘Magnificent Seven’ tech stocks...
Complacency or checks and balances?
1 June 2025Last week’s pullback proved to be just a blip in the impressive stock market recovery. On tariffs, markets were buoyed in the early part of the week by the notion of the so-called “TACO trade” (Trump Always Chickens Out)...
Return of the bond vigilantes
23 May 2025After weeks of unimpeded recovery, this week’s pull back in global stock prices was probably to be expected. The story that Trump is back on the tariff war-path with the EU, planning to impose 50% levies (possibly before the...
A rally that requires belief
16 May 2025A good week for US stocks has erased the year’s losses in dollar terms (in sterling terms, they are mildly negative). The tech-heavy NASDAQ index is officially in a bullish trend – passing the 20% up mark from April’s trough....
Markets calm but trouble still bubbles
12 May 2025Despite the India-Pakistan hostilities, markets remained calm this week. Measured price volatility came down substantially although, due to global economic uncertainty, implied future volatility – the cost of insuring your assets...
Markets cheer US policy stabilisation
2 May 2025It ends as a pretty good week for global markets. That is despite dire US GDP figures, mixed earnings reports from the biggest US tech companies and, for us, disappointing news that a US-UK trade deal is unlikely to come soon....
Improving mood versus slowing growth
25 April 2025Capital markets bounced this week and the mood notably improved. Media commentary put this down to Donald Trump’s softer rhetoric on Chinese tariffs, and his affirmation of the US central bank’s (the Federal Reserve’s) independence....