Ear to the Ground
This week as again been dominated by central bank actions. Here in the UK we had the Bank of England working busily. Firstly they auctioned their first tranche of government bonds as they looked to reduce their balance sheet holding of £838bn. They sold £750m of gilts which had a remaining maturity of between three and seven years.
Monthly Update 31/10/2022
Monthly Update31 October 2022 The Fund rose by 3.52% during October, ahead of its performance comparator of cash (as measured by the Bank of England’s Sterling Overnight Index Average (“SONIA”)) + 5% which rose 0.60%. It was also ahead of the FTSE 100 index which was up 2.91% over the month on a capital only […]
Monthly Update 31/10/2022
Monthly Update31 October 2022 The Fund posted a return of -1.78% for October, underperforming the sector average return of 0.09%. Most equity markets ended in positive territory for the month, with the exception of the Hang Seng. Here investors remained nervous as the Chinese authorities continued with their zero tolerance policy on COVID. Other markets […]
Ear to the Ground
A number of central banks have held their latest meeting to set interest rates. The ECB acted in line with expectations, increasing its policy rate by 0.75% to 1.5%. The ECB also offered hints as to the future direction of its rate setting. Whilst further hikes are expected to combat inflation, which is still deemed as being too high, the central bank suggested that pace of rate hikes may be slower moving forward.
Ear to the Ground
It is fair to conclude that this week has again been dominated by politics, with the resignation of Liz Truss stealing the headlines. This has been very well publicised in great depth and therefore we will leave it there. From an economic perspective in the UK, this week we saw the release of CPI to September. This came in at 10.1%. This was slightly ahead of the consensus forecast of 10% and given this did little to unnerve markets.
Ear to the Ground
Eyes have been firmly focussed on the US this week as investors awaited the latest inflation print. Although a lagging indicator, the level on inflation in the economy is main factor driving the US Federal Reserve monetary policy. The headline inflation for September came out at 8.2%. Feelings were mixed on its release. ..
Ear to the Ground
This week has very much been a to and fro between whether the US Federal Reserve are about to pivot and adopt a more dovish monetary policy stance, or perhaps less tightening stance would be a more appropriate way to put it. Investors are therefore focussing on every scrap of economic data which they can get their hands on. We appear to be back…
Monthly Update 30/09/2022
Monthly Update30 September 2022 The Fund fell by 4.79% during September, behind its performance comparator of cash (as measured by the Bank of England’s Sterling Overnight Index Average (“SONIA”)) + 5% which rose 0.55%. It was ahead of the FTSE 100 index, however, which was down 5.36% over the month on a capital only basis.(Source […]
Ear to the Ground
Do we ironically owe them an inadvertent thank you? This may appear to be a very strange suggestion in that, given the turmoil that their latest fiscal plans have brought, that we could even start to think that we owe this to Truss and Kwarteng. I am in no way taking any political sides here but bear with me on this one. In our special edition…
Ear to the Ground
Late last week we saw the first what was meant to be mini-Budget from Kwasi Kwarteng, the new UK Chancellor. Given the level and degree of announcements made however you could be mistaken for thinking that it was indeed a full budget. The tax cuts and levels of spending which the government have committed to are now very well publicised.
