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Rathbones International - Multi-Asset update
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
This is the second in a series of monthly updates we will bring to you during 2018 with Assistant Fund Manager Will McIntosh-Whyte. Will shares his views on the global economy and the implications for the Rathbone Multi-Asset portfolios through this year. Take this opportunity to hear how the strategies are positioned as developments unfold
Rathbones International - Multi-Asset update
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Assistant Fund Manager Will McIntosh-Whyte shares his views on the global economy and the implications for the Rathbone Multi-Asset portfolios through this year. Take this opportunity to hear how the strategies are positioned as developments unfold
Chart of the week: A lag in our R&D spending
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Productivity growth is falling around the world, but the slowdown is more acute in the UK. This deceleration could be lessened – and even reversed – by investment in research and development (R&D), which kick-starts new technologies and, ultimately, increases growth and productivity. However, the UK’s spending in this area is falling behind other developed economies at a time when we need to be leading the way.
Crunch time (again)
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
We don’t know about you, but over the past year or so we got into the habit of buying our travel money extremely far in advance of holidays.
How a widely used industrial metal takes the global economy’s pulse
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Want to measure the pulse of the global economy? Ask Dr Copper, or so the adage goes. Copper is all around us. You need it to build a house, a car and a hairdryer. The red metal is even one of the most intensively used raw materials in the green energy revolution — more electrical motors, more battery packs (but fewer internal combustion engines) means more copper wiring. So demand for copper ebbs and flows with the ups and downs of the business cycle.
Chart of the week: Will Brexit have a global impact?
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Britain is a small, open economy. ‘Small’ may sound a bit strange when by GDP, the UK is the fifth-largest country in the world. But, in fact, we only contribute 2% of global GDP, which means that we aren’t big enough to unilaterally influence global prices, interest rates, or the global economy at all. We are a small economy and we have some big problems, but a Brexit wobble won’t derail the whole global economy.
Rathbone Multi-Asset Portfolio Funds: Not betting on black
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
As we approach the Brexit deadline day, Will McIntosh-Whyte discusses why the Multi-Asset team are not looking to take big bets on the outcome, but rather position the portfolios in order to minimise any downside risk whatever the outcome.
Brexit edges forward amid Parliamentary chaos
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
This has been a tumultuous week for politics by anyone’s standards. Following the drama of Brexit votes and Parliament exerting its will not to leave the EU without a deal, it was a better day in the office for Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday.
Cutting cost is good, investment is better
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Ten years ago this month, the American stock market, stricken by the global financial crisis, bottomed out and started one of the longest upward market trends in history. Now, a decade on, Rathbone Income fund manager Carl Stick thinks it’s appropriate to talk about change.
Chart of the week: “Just get it online”
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
In some ways, retail is going through a similar transformation to that of the auto industry, when greater automation and systems seeped into manufacturing decades ago. Nowadays, retail shopping is less about swamping high streets with clothes or sofas in every size and colour. Far better to save your property budget for creating a huge and efficient logistics network to deliver what consumers want, to their door, overnight. In this just-in-time environment, quality data is pivotal. But, very few companies have it, and they tend to reside in Silicon Valley.
Brexit: What on earth's going on?
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Theresa May has asked the European Union (EU) for a delay in the UK’s departure until 30 June, with EU officials indicating they would only grant an extension on the grounds of Parliament agreeing a deal.
Chart of the week: Feeling short changed?
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Unfortunately for us, this decimation in the standard of living is unique to the UK. Not only have real wages struggled since 2008, we now have the poorest rate of social mobility of any advanced major economy. Our future is uncertain, and that can’t just be blamed on Brexit. Edward Smith, Rathbones’ head of asset allocation research, discussed his concerns about our small but troubled economy and considered our future at our annual investment conference.