It’s been a long, hot September, and global activity remains muted. The Fed has put tightening on Ice with the market now anticipating modest interest rate rises through next year, while the Bank of Japan is chucking the kitchen sink of extreme monetary policy at the problem of deflation. While markets struggled with a host…
If you want to figure out what’s likely to happen in the next eight months, a good start is to try to understand what’s been happening over the last eight years – since the collapse of Lehman and the beginning of the Global Financial Crisis. Understanding what a portfolio should look like to cope with…
As seen in the January edition of Master Investor Magazine. “My global outlook for 2016 is for broadly steady but slow growth – the new normal – but a nervous and skittish market over-reacting to news flow. My biggest threat for this year is a positive upside economic surprise – stronger than expected US growth!…
As featured in this month’s Master Investor Magazine. A few lifetimes ago, in early August, the editor asked me to write about optimal portfolio composition ahead of the then expected US rate hike in September. I scribbled up a note on how global growth remains sub-par, under threat, and how a rate hike might just…
“It is excellent to have a giants strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant…” Somewhere in Yoorp… Interviewer: Mr Draghi… you’re a central banker. After promising to extend yet more emergency money to Greek banks, a Euro 7bln bridge loan to repay yourself next week, and a new Euro 86bln 3rd…
Over the last few weeks we’ve seen some pretty extraordinary moves in the bond markets. We’ve seen bonds trade over 2-3 percent daily trading ranges – ranges that would be considered extreme a few years ago for such non-volatile core investment instruments. We’ve seen investors increasingly concerned that stock market valuations look overblown, and there…
By Bill Blain – Strategist at Mint Partners Well placed rumours say a number of large European banks are about to pull out of investment banking and markets. Credit Suisse is said to be mulling the closure or sale its investment bank and focus on Wealth Management instead. This comes on the back of similar…
