Cranswick has a rich history of growth over the long-term. We analyse the role that its culture has played in that journey and why it’s a key part of our investment analysis.
A particularly challenging client group for investment managers and advisers
The global economy entered 2026 in a relatively strong position, but the Middle East conflict quickly reshaped the outlook, disrupting oil and gas supplies and triggering an energy shock. Yet while the near-term effects are …
Excitement over AI has been a key driver of strong stock market returns over the last decade. This has benefitted the passive funds that track their performance, while active managers have had a more challenging …
We explore this deceptively simple question, examining the cognitive trap of judging decisions by their short-term outcomes rather than the quality of the process behind them.
Markets don't like uncertainty - and right now there is plenty of it. Conflict in the Middle East, questions over oil supplies and renewed tariff tensions have all tested investor confidence. How are our clients’ …
Doing the right thing in investment markets usually feels unpalatable. Finding value often means swimming against the tide and hunting for ideas where others are not.
The fluid and often conflicting narratives around artificial intelligence (AI) are challenging for all of us. But what’s hard fact, and what’s speculative fiction? And how should we think about AI as we look to …
AI is constantly in the news but is it getting more attention that it deserves? And if so, how should we invest our clients’ money?
Our Harrogate office recently hosted a guest speaker event, where energy expert Graham Cooley gave a talk on the UK Energy Transition, asking the question ‘Is full electrification the answer to decarbonisation?’ Graham outlined where …
Demographic change is one of the most predictable long-term trends and it's driving growth in the hearing aid industry. With hearing loss set to affect 700 million people by 2050, demand is rising. Sonova, a …
At McInroy & Wood, we focus on the essential technologies behind major innovations. ASML, a Dutch leader in chip-making equipment, plays a crucial role in artificial intelligence by enabling the production of the world’s most …
While our limited exposure to the headline-grabbing companies might suggest an absence of cutting-edge technology stocks, we prefer to survey a broader horizon of long-term opportunities.
Equity market returns have been narrowly concentrated in recent years. But the unpredictability of market timing highlights the need for a disciplined investment approach and a diversified portfolio of global companies.
Searching for soundly financed businesses with strong competitive positions has been fundamental to our investment approach since 1986 and has contributed to our long-term performance.
Inflationary pressures appear to be easing, and for the first time in decades cash deposits offer an attractive return. So why invest in shares? In this video, we share our thoughts on the economic outlook …
The immediate economic outlook appears gloomy, as inflation affects both consumer spending and company profits. Central banks have added to the economic pressure by increasing interest rates. Despite this, there remain interesting themes that offer …
The transition towards cleaner, low-carbon economies will influence returns for many years. In our webinar we share our views and what it means for investors.
Inflation is proving more stubborn than central banks had envisaged, as supply shortages and higher energy costs feed through into retail prices. In this video, Tim Wood and Guido Bicocchi discuss our strategy for navigating …
Following the previous year’s rebound in Tech stocks, Tesla and Bitcoin there is much discussion of ‘investment bubbles’. We discuss why markets might be seen as “bubbly” and how we are positioning portfolios in light …
One year on from COVID-19 the vaccine roll-out begins. As the nation returns to normality, we are cautiously optimistic. Our Investment Team share our views on the future of the economy with a focus on …
This piece shares our suspicions about the rationale for company takeovers and mergers. For various reasons, there have been a lot of these recently, including some in our own neck of the woods. Not all …
Conflicts of interests have ever nourished the ground of human frailty. But the resulting damage has mounted over recent years. Contrasts can be drawn with standards of probity evident in the early 20th century. Improvement …
In our article of July 2000, we talked about the development and implications of the then technology bubble for investors. Here we revisit the theme of technology exploring the impact of social media on our …
Our piece last April referred to the risk posed by ‘nations turning in on themselves’. Despite the danger, that is what seems to be happening. So far, equity markets are ignoring the threat. Recent bond …
'Short-termism' reveals nothing new about human appetite. But the damage it inflicts seems to grow by the week. Voters, business customers, and all its other victims are expressing disgust. An alternative way forward must be …
Investment managers have come under fire from analysts and the press on grounds that they overcharge and underachieve. Some of this criticism can be readily justified. However, managers' objectives vary hugely and some may be …
For some time before our 25th anniversary, kind readers had suggested reassembling these articles in one place. After some hesitation, we decided that publishing them in a book might be a suitable way to mark …
A study in 2008 by a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee suggested that the UK government ‘outsourced’ more of its requirements than virtually any other. But nobody seemed to have …
Changes of investment fashion never arrive in small doses. When the investment hemline goes up, it doesn’t stop at the knees but at the navel. As with dresses at a Paris show, the trend gets …
At social events, family doctors and investment managers make ready prey for the chatty but often slightly informed enquirer. Any manager addressing the inevitable question about ‘market prospects’ needs to know what market the enquirer …
Despite pundits’ gloomy projections at the start of 2004, the year turned out well for equity market investors. Both the UK and US indices had risen appreciably from the depths they reached in 2003 after …
Beguiled by the claims of some financial practitioners, investors seemed repeatedly to be mistaking where investment treasure was to be found.
Regular caricature of the City tipster had no doubt coloured perceptions, but the financial …
Half way through Tony Blair’s 10 year term, disillusionment had set in. Much had been promised and much expected. Failure to meet targets set for public services fed public frustration and fostered mistrust.
An air …
The firm has always counted itself fortunate to be distanced from London and even, dare one admit, from Edinburgh. Financial centres trade on opinions, myths, rumour and chit-chat, and all the other distractions that come …
Andrew Carnegie was a sharp-witted lad out to impress his bosses. He knew the value of the personal touch, the power of personality. He saw how people matter to businesses. Yet the very success of …
Over its life, up to 2002, the firm had spent much time and expense disentangling client investors from unsuitable financial products that had gone wrong. These disasters stemmed from advice tendered usually by product promoters …
In the background to this piece lurks the remarkable fact that, while customers generally exercise reasonable care to inform themselves about the relevant facts when they buy a house or a car, they do not …
By midsummer 2000, technology fever had infected the collective investment wisdom. The atmosphere put one in mind of the great Tokyo property bubble a decade earlier.
If one were searching for the value that can …
Wall Street had been a wonderful place to invest in the 1990s. Our older directors could remember decades past when UK institutions – pension funds, investment trusts, insurance companies – held a significant chunk of …
Sport was one area where the founders of the firm fell out. One, a thoroughly modern man, a realist, harboured no Arcadian dreams about what once was known as the ‘amateur’ ethos: the other, a …
Even in 1997, consumers’ confidence was recognised in America as a vital ingredient in assessing prospects for the economy. Movements in confidence were recorded on a chart.
Wall Street tried to measure investors’ confidence in …
Continuity matters – to investment clients no less than to the BBC’s Radio Three listeners noted in this piece. That is why, despite service providers’ unceasing efforts to shift tastes towards different and, for them …
Despite glorious weather throughout the summer of 1995, the public mood had been soured by dark resentment. Executive pay at British Gas had become a lightning rod for malcontents, but a wider underlying concern centred …
Investment managers had only themselves to blame if they were held to be little more than gamblers in a casino.
As the Sage of Omaha has observed, “risk comes from not knowing what you are …
Investment fashion can shift quite as abruptly as forms of artistic expression.
Bond investors had certainly done very well since our piece in 1989 – quite a bit better than equity investors – but in …
This piece dealt with the puzzling disconnect between a rising UK stock market and the determinedly gloomy forecasts of local analysts. We were trying to explain why the market so often defied these dark expectations.
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By way of explaining apparently bizarre movements in securities markets, this article pointed to monetary policy and its impact on short-term interest rates as the biggest factor in shifting investors’ confidence.
The UK inflation and …
Sheer power of personality to carry through a stratagem, however harmful, revealed itself as clearly in the political and economic events of 1989 as it had in wartime.
We felt then, as we do now, …
By 1989 the term ‘value’ had become an investment catchword. But investment managers found it difficult to define its ingredients. That was because its characteristics were always bound to be relative qualities not absolute ones. …
During the 1980s, so-called ‘performance’ became a buzz-word for those marketing and analysing financial products and services. By 1988, performance-driven advertising (read exploitation) had persuaded thousands of unit trust investors into purchases at market peaks. …
The Dutch tulip mania of the 17th century adds vivid colour to the history of global stock markets. This article, written by Alan McInroy, explains, rather than anticipates, the market collapse in the autumn of …
Happily (or not), publication of this article preceded by a few days the equity market crash on Monday, October 19th – ‘Black Monday’.
The index of shares on Wall Street had been rising more or …
Here we are with the UK market now in the thirteenth year of a rise that began in 1974. Few investors in Britain have experienced a stronger bull market; many indeed have never seen a …
This article was written by Alan McInroy, the senior of the firm’s founders, to explain the reasons underlying the establishment of the firm.
