Investment Commentary
This is where we will keep you up to date with the views of our Independent Investment Committee.
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Q1 Investment Update – Taxes and Tariffs
Much of what happened in the first quarter of 2025 is inconsequential given what happened in the days following the end of the quarter, which we will touch on later as it would be…
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Broken Crystal Balls
Just like 2023, 2024 was another good year for risk assets globally – in fact it was even better. The MSCI ACWI index returned 20% over the year, coming off the back of a…
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Q3 Investment Update – Burn After Reading
The third quarter of 2024 was more volatile than the first half of the year, as investors tried to make sense of conflicting economic data, central bank messaging and the deteriorating situation in the…
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Q2 Investment Update – Ignore the Noise
2024 has been dubbed the year of the election, with at least 65 taking place across the globe with nearly half the global population involved. At home, we’ve just had our first change in…
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Q1 Investment Update – Reap the Rewards
Equity markets started 2024 like they ended 2023, with global equities (as measured by MSCI ACWI) returning 8.7% in the first quarter. This has been led once again by the US, followed closely by…
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Q4 Investment Update – Santa Rally
Christmas came early for investors as a Santa rally in equity markets through November and December in particular, left investors with much to cheer. The MSCI ACWI index (which represents 98% of the investable…
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Q3 Investment Update – Pause for Breath
Many people breathed a sigh of relief as, finally, the Bank of England paused interest rate rises for the first time since December 2021, during which time they have raised the base rate from…
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Q2 Investment Update – Magnificent Seven
Sticky inflation, rising interest rates, bank failures, an attempted coup in Russia, the US narrowly avoiding default by a matter of days and an ongoing cost of living crisis. You’d be forgiven for thinking…
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Q1 Investment Update – Banks again
2023 got off to a better start than 2022 and was looking likely to correct some of the previous year’s losses. We have long said that markets tend to overshoot on the downside as…
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Q4 Investment Update – The worst of times
2022 was not the worse year for shares but it was the worst year for bonds and it was the worst year for shares and bonds combined since records began in 1871. This is…