Blog - Economy

We’re all craving the end of lockdown and a bit of freedom. But Craig Brown, our multi-asset investment specialist, wonders just how many of us will be in the position to spend up large.

It looks like we’ll all be staying in this Valentine’s Day. But multi-asset fund manager Will McIntosh-Whyte is looking forward to some quality time away from the screens. 

As China celebrates the Year of the Ox, our head of asset allocation research Edward Smith considers the health of the world’s second-largest economy – and the resulting implications for global trade and financial markets.

As you may have seen in your clients’ portfolios, the US dollar has been tottering a little lately. Head of asset allocation research, Ed Smith, asks if this is a short-term wobble or whether the dollar may lose its perch after decades of dominance?

As investors look ahead to a time when the pandemic will be over, Ed Smith and Sanjiv Tumkur, our respective heads of asset allocation and equity research, question whether equity markets are in the midst of a great rotation from ‘growth’ to ‘value’.

A roller-coaster of a year finished on a high note for the markets, and we start 2021 with a sense of relief that one of the most difficult years many of us have ever experienced is behind us.

A lockdown-induced Christmas TV binge didn’t extend quite as far the Wizard of Oz for our head of multi-asset investments, David Coombs. But “the Great and Terrible” did come up in a conversation about bitcoin.

Well, 2020 didn’t go the way we all expected. Our head of multi-asset investments, David Coombs, has tossed out his old fortune-telling teacup and reached for the magic 8-ball this year.

Head of equity research, Sanjiv Tumkur, considers how a new generation of consumers are leading long-established brands - the bedrock of portfolios around the world - to adapt a more sustainable approach and help shape a ‘brand’ new world.

With vaccines in the offing, many investors argue that inflation is just around the corner. Fill your boots with airlines, they say. Yet our head of multi-asset investments David Coombs has had his head in the 1970s lately, and it’s helped him spot a flaw in the plan.

With a clutch of vaccines on the way soon, equity markets were in a buoyant mood in November. But there are still a lot of things we don’t know – and even some things we don’t know that we don’t know…

In June 2020, rating agency Morningstar reported that global investments in environmental, social and governance (ESG) funds had reached a record high of $1.06 trillion, with capital inflows into sustainable funds up 72% in the second quarter alone.