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?
We recently hosted a talk in London with Lieutenant General Sir Nick Borton, senior NATO adviser. He shared frontline insights on the evolving nature of conflict, NATO’s shifting role, and the strategic challenges ahead. In …
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 …
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 …
An attempt to unearth the impact of advancing artificial intelligence on investment managers.
Our London Office hosted Dr Gavin Law as part of a series of talks on the energy transition and climate change. Dr Law is Head of Gas and Power Consulting at Wood MacKenzie and is …
Trust plays a vital role in sustaining liberal democracy in the west. The authority of long established institutions in America and the UK has come under severe attack by disaffected voters.
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 …
Our London office hosted Julian Kettle from Wood Mackenzie for a talk on the importance of metals in the energy transition.
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 …
Most investors haven’t experienced UK stagflation for close on 50 years. Current economic trends are pointing towards another such period. We could be about to see the UK financial authorities raising interest rates to rein …
A number of countries (including the UK) acknowledge the worth of non-economic factors to people’s wellbeing and many try to measure their scale. None, however, yet appear to have identified national happiness as their central …
Professor Allen’s talk is insightful, thought-provoking and highlights some of the complex issues that have to be considered when making investment decisions with climate change in mind.
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 …
Pressures from the Virus are reinforcing changes in social priorities. The political class bows in response. Beyond the immediate ghastliness we may find the building blocks of a better future.
Populism now seems to infect political discourse across the Western World. It’s a destructive force. But there is evidence to suggest that traditional values of civility and neighbourliness outlast the appeal of the populist.
Here we consider how technology and the web have hugely changed and speeded up our lives and the efficiency of our businesses. But what do we lose in the rush from cradle to grave? We …
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 …
Equity markets have shown a surprising resilience over recent months. This piece seeks to identify an explanation. It also discusses the risk(s) to current complacency. These centre on the political and economic impacts of popular …
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 …
In facing current crises, European leaders have had to battle with mounting and widespread mistrust of political posturing.
The UK leader, David Cameron has been faced, in addition, with open rebellion in his own parliamentary …
‘Bonus’ incentives had become disproportionate to any value contributed and stakeholders were increasingly intolerant of them. Far the most effective incentive to do one’s best is job satisfaction, not extravagant remuneration.
‘Globalisation’ is the outcome of the growth of global business. The result is a para-State without boundaries. Its workings should be urgently addressed by a global agency.
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 …
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook must have been one of the most fantastic business stories of the millennium. Maybe the advent of social networking owed much to the loss people felt at the depersonalising of day-to-day private …
Many hoped that the 2010 general election on 6 May would cleanse what they had come to view as the Augean Stables at Westminister.
The election was held beneath a pall of ash spewed over …
One could hardly exaggerate how angry people were in 2009. In Britain, there has never been any shortage of the disaffected. But by summer that year, passions came to the boil and the apparent reasons …
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 …
By 2007, regulation, governance, codes of practice and compliance had created a vast array of consultants feeding on new complexities. Micro-regulation had become an inviting target for brick-bats. Presumably, those most constrained by intrusive bureaucracy …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Plantagenet and Tudor monarchs often married noble foreign princesses for strategic purposes. Marriage could extend their sovereignty.
Until the 1990s, most company takeovers had been a domestic matter; mega international deals were rarer and generally …
Churchill said, ‘if you make ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.’
By November 1995 the cost of wasteful bureaucracy not least for farmers in the UK was virtually incalculable. Without doubt, …
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 …
World War I put paid to Romanticism as a creative idiom. But post-war Modernism has in no way diminished the affection of music lovers for Elgar and the classical structure which shaped his invention. Structure …
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 the Spring of 1992, concerns were being aired at meetings of the G7 and other international forums, about the flattening out of economic growth rates and the possibility of renewed recession. Growth in the …
Rather against the odds, John Major had been re-elected at the April 1992 general election. The opposition leader, Neil Kinnock, for all his success in modernising Labour Party policy, had been perceived as shallow and …
Britain joined the EEC in 1973 under the terms of the Treaty of Accession. In a referendum in 1975, the people of Britain voted by a large majority to support the Labour government’s campaign to …
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 …
In March 1990, there was a huge anti-‘poll-tax’ riot in Trafalgar Square. Over 100 protestors were injured. The nation looked aghast at the pictures. A mere 2 months after that, Neil Kinnock’s strikingly radical policy …
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. …
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 …
