Quarterly Investment Commentary

Stock markets continued to edge higher, returning 1.5% as measured by ACWI. This was driven by strong corporate earnings which kept equity markets resilient despite increased concerns around persistent higher inflation driven by renewed escalations in the Middle East. Japanese equities were the best performing region, driven on by very strong earnings for a number […]

In 2017 a photo-sharing app called Snap went public selling shares that came with no votes whatsoever. You could buy in, own your sliver of the company, and have precisely no say in how it was run. The index providers took one look and changed the rules. S&P barred firms with multiple share classes from

If you had been reading the news and had paid no attention to financial markets over the course of the first three months of the year, you would most likely expect that stock markets had crashed and we were well into a bear market. The truth is that global markets have been much more sanguine

I read commentary this week from my favourite political analyst Ian Dunt. He is a brilliant writer, author and commentator on UK politics; blunt, sweary and honest.  In his piece he was articulating his surprise that stockmarkets weren’t reacting more to the US attacks on Iran.  As he comes from a politics specialism it is

Global equities had another stellar year, returning 14% across 2025 in GBP terms as measured by the MSCI ACWI index. Given where we were after Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ in April this is quite the result. The story of where these returns came from was however rather different compared to previous years. The S&P 500 was,

The S&P500 index of leading American shares grew faster than the price of gold for four years until 2025. That was a good year for US shares but an extraordinary one for the gold price which gained more than 60%. The reviews of 2025 include a list of the top performing funds, and they are

We have seen a wide range of benchmarks being used by other wealth managers over the years. From credible to ridiculous but none of them perfect. Benchmarks are important because no client can really judge how their wealth manager, investment manager or adviser is doing without a comparison. Most clients don’t move managers for decades

We have started to receive questions from clients about whether their portfolios are over exposed to a handful of US listed companies. This understandable as there has been so much written in the financial press on this subject recently.  There is of course something to write about. NVidia has recently been valued as high as

One of the joys of writing market commentaries is that the markets will often make you look like a fool as soon as you press go. That is why we have always recommended ignoring them.  If you invest in stockmarkets then so far 2025 has been a Golden Year. So much so we are starting