News and Updates

For a number of months now, the world’s largest survey of fund managers has observed that, when asked for their greatest financial market fear, the most cited response has been a ‘trade war’. There is a significant slug of rationality for this.

As the intensity of fears of a no deal Brexit rise, it is clear that businesses are quietly going about their business and taking the necessary steps to keep trading. From steel to chocolate, from drugs to vinyl material, companies are putting plans in place to build up stocks of materials in case there is unrest at the ports.

In the global investment strategy calendar there is only one period of time that can compare with the turn of the year in terms of importance… and that is the back to school period.

Despite the usual weather downers such as the tennis at Wimbledon or the start of the school holidays, July was a warm month pretty much anywhere you looked in the northern hemisphere. Global stock markets were hot too, led by the out-of-favour emerging markets and Continental Europe. Funny how all throughout June and July the aggregate investment flow data was profoundly negative for both regions…

We have been busy rebalancing your portfolios and where possible sweeping up and ensuring we have taken advantage of Capital Gains Tax allowances for the financial year 2017/18 just ending to keep your investments as tax efficient as we can.

Attached are our quarterly valuations to the end of September. Across the board the portfolios have delivered performance in line with expectations with values falling back a little during September primarily on the back of Donald Trump, North Korea and what one might call slight confusion on the strategy for Brexit!

Taking the media (including social media) as a whole, one could be forgiven for believing that the end of the UK as we know it is upon us and that a seismic shift will start to take place.

We attach our European strategist Chris Bailey’s commentary and our summary and strategy is as follows; The forthcoming General Election will bring political change whatever the outcome.

Whilst ‘Brenda from Bristol’ captivated the British public with her displeasure about the upcoming UK election, investors elsewhere in Europe were celebrating as the first round of the French Presidential contest appeared to continue the trend started by the Dutch vote in March of stepping away from the populist brink.

On Wednesday 29th March the UK gave official notice under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to start the UK/EU divorce proceedings (just in case you missed it). Since the Referendum there has been plenty of speculation about what the divorce will mean for the UK and the rest of Europe, all of it meaningless, as in our view the outcome is impossible to predict, particularly if the UK invades Spain to secure Gibraltar!

This Budget was Mr Hammond’s first – and last – Spring Budget. From now on Budgets will take place in Autumn and there will be a financial statement each Spring. Thus, the next Budget is probably a little over eight months away although, as 2016 revealed, much can happen even over such a brief period.

There is a lot to be said for keeping life simple particularly when it comes to investing. Last year in 2016 this was more evident than ever. Who could have predicted Brexit, Trump and that Marmite would rise in price by 12.5%!!

The last Budget on 16 March now seems a distant memory from a past era. Back then the Chancellor was George Osborne, the Prime Minister was David Cameron, the UK looked likely to remain a member of the EU after 23 June and Donald Trump was not considered a serious US presidential candidate.

As you will note, portfolios across the board are all up strongly since the start of July, more than making up for a slow first half of the year as shown in the chart below. So much for the negative impact on Brexit that all the commentators made following the EU Referendum result!

“The more things change, the more they stay the same”. It is still early days after last week’s momentous Referendum and a week later, given all the headlines in the news, one would have expected to see investment markets decimated.

June 23rd’s Referendum will be the biggest political choice many of us will make in our lifetime. It certainly will affect our economy, as well as our sovereignty, security, foreign policy and immigration to name just the headlines.

All investors are likely to agree that ‘Brexit’ is an ungainly word that is likely to be heard far too often in the remaining time before the European Union ‘remain/leave’ vote on 23 June. But what should voters – and investors – think? Here we make the case for both sides… and leave the ultimate decision up to you.

Despite the volatility in equity markets over the last quarter, valuations are up slightly and the mix of defensive and growth assets remains largely unchanged and for this reason the rebalance trading activity on the portfolio has been minimal.

This was Mr Osborne’s third Budget within the space of a year, even if you disregard the quasibudget measures announced in November’s Autumn Statement. Since last March’s preelection Budget Mr Osborne has been quietly tightening the tax screws with, for example, the revisions to dividend taxation and a new employment tax in the guise of an apprenticeship levy.