Ear to the Ground
With February now drawn to a close, we provide a summary of market movements for the month rather than the usual Fund Focus, which will return next week.
Monthly Update 28/02/2023
Monthly Update28 February 2023 The Fund posted a return of -0.77% for February, marginally underperforming the sector average return of -0.65%. The performance of key equity market indices was mixed during the month. Chinese stocks were some of the weakest performers. Although the economy continues to open and further policy support for economic growth is […]
Ear to the Ground
Whilst the result was already known, the market keenly awaited the publishing of the minutes of the last US Federal Reserve meeting. These revealed that the majority of the policy setting committee members had voted in favour of a 0.25% hike.
Ear to the Ground
Here in the UK, a congratulations to the FTSE 100 which breached the 8,000 level for the first time. Despite weak earnings from Barclays, there were strong earnings posted by Centrica, whose principal activity is the supply of electricity and gas in the UK.
Ear to the Ground
The preliminary release for fourth quarter GDP in the UK showed that the UK economy stalled in the period. Although third quarter figures were revised down, showing a contraction of -0.2%, the flat figure meant that the economy narrowly avoided recession.
Ear to the Ground
I am very much at risk of sounding like a broken record, again, but… it was again a week when central banks around the world stole the limelight. In the US, the Federal Reserve raised the target range for the fed funds rate by 0.25% to 4.5%-4.75%.
Monthly Update 31/01/2023
Monthly Update31 January 2023 The Fund posted a return of 4.48% for January, outperforming the sector average return of 3.35%. The performance of key equity market indices was strong during the month. The Hang Seng proved a strong performer in local currency terms, with the Chinese authorities continuing their push to have the economy fully […]
Ear to the Ground
A quieter week on the economic data front, with little out of the UK or the Euro area. In the latter there were numerous speeches made by ECB members which appear suggest that
Ear to the Ground
We start in the east this week, Japan in particular, where we had a number of announcements. Firstly, we had the Bank of Japan meet to decide on the level of interest rates. Here the decision was made to keep the rate on hold at -0.1%, which was in line with market expectations.
Ear to the Ground
This week we saw the World Bank make a change to its investment outlook for 2023. The organisation had previously forecast that the global economy would grow by 3% this year.
