News: 04 July 2022
Why is it not compulsory for every new build to have solar panels? It is because we, and almost every other country, actually do not take climate change seriously.
News: 27 June 2022
The root of double-digit inflation is not what has happened over the past three or four months. What we are seeing, in gardening terms, are the leaves, the fruits and the flowers of plants sowed long ago.
News: 20 June 2022
Inflation will come, and it will go. Interest rates will rise, and they will fall again. Prime ministers and presidents will be here today and, if I may say so, gone tomorrow (to borrow Robin Day’s wonderful expression). All the time, though, the world will keep warming.
News: 13 June 2022
Mrs Johnson’s lip-read commentary on the Jubilee Pageant is a slightly far-fetched illustration of why it is likely that we have yet to see the worst of current markets. Nonetheless, it is still a relevant encapsulation of why equity markets are still falling.
News: 06 June 2022
The markets are of the view that the euro may be due a spot of form. The dollar has already soared, while there are queues of scribes proclaiming the ills of sterling. If no more than the need to try to do something different, the euro is becoming the currency of the moment.
News: 30 May 2022
Equity markets enjoyed a much better time of things last week. It was overdue. The American markets had fallen for seven consecutive weeks and a bounce of some sorts was in the offing.
News: 23 May 2022
This tells us a great deal about the composition of indices and very little about the wider performance of equities. Equity indices are typically weighted according to the size of their components: the largest companies make the greatest contribution to the performance of the index.
News: 16 May 2022
There is though just the outside possibility that everyone is excessively gloomy. The strong majority of companies, in all walks of the economy, that we speak with or listen to are reporting that trading is pretty good. Certain parts of retail are struggling, especially in the UK, but beyond this business activity strikes us as being good.
News: 09 May 2022
So, all else being equal, inflation rates will fall in probably 12 to 18 months’ time. Unfortunately the road from here to there is going to be bumpy. On Wednesday this week, we get to see the latest calculation of US inflation. As is habitual, the ‘consensus’ is that the headline rate will fall, this time from 8.5% to 8.1%.
News: 25 April 2022
Our statement of the obvious is that markets are going to stay volatile. Today is a very red day. There will be better ones. Trying to guess which is which from week to week, or month to month, will almost certainly result in more bad decisions than good ones. It is time to retain focus on how to invest in times of rising prices and we reiterate the merits of patiently holding companies with proven pricing power and high barriers to entry.
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