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What a more flexible Fed means for investors everywhere
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
The Fed, America’s central bank, has a dual mandate, to maintain stable prices for the goods and services that households want to purchase, and promote maximum employment, which means that everyone who wants a job can get one. Congress formalised this mandate in 1977, but the Fed has been guided by it since the 1946 Employment Act, passed to help ensure Americans were rewarded for their efforts during World War II with a good standard of living.
Review of the week: Thanksgiving may be a super-spreader; will vaccine news bring holiday cheer?
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Thanksgiving may be a super-spreader event this year, as governments around the world try to plan their way through the upcoming festive season. But investors have been given a boost from good vaccine news.
Writing in the time of corona
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
In March, Paul Farley, Chair of Judges for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020, delivered the prize-giving speech from his Lancashire garden. “You’ll have to imagine there’s a party — a podium, flutes of house prosecco, the din of assembled guests,” he said.
Review of the week: Making sense of the numbers
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Stock markets shot the lights out in November as news of promising vaccines hit the wires. The realities of distribution have lessened the glow a bit recently, leading investors to start reassessing their approach.
Specialist ETFs offer unique opportunities and risks
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Some specialist exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are all the rage at the moment, like ‘working from home stocks’ or Biden and Trump baskets, which selected stocks according to whether they were likely to benefit from a victory by the respective candidate. But this approach can go wrong, which is why it’s important to take a close look under the hood before investing in ETFs.
Staying balanced
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
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…
Review of the week: Playing fair by trade
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Brexit was always going to be hard. The tortuous negotiation of a trade deal highlights the difficult compromise at its heart: the freedom of sovereignty or the prosperity that comes with smooth trade.
Review of the Week: Last Chance Bistrot
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Brexit trade deal talks have busted through yet another hard deadline. With time short and relationships strained, it’s time for a Christmas miracle.
Review of the week: A Christmas like no other
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
While we were all cooped up inside, everything was happening out there. Breakthroughs on Brexit and COVID-19 collided with political strife and big moves in bond yields.
Uncharted waters
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Article by, Ian Tansley, Regional Director, Rathbones Until recently the bottom of the ocean presented the biggest challenge to travellers. But that is all changing. Welcome to the world of deep-sea tourism. Close to seven miles beneath the Pacific Ocean surface, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, lies the deepest point on Earth. Known as Challenger Deep — after HMS Challenger, which first sounded the spot in 1875 — it is a mile deeper than Everest is high.
Review of the week: E pluribus unum
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
One President will be sworn in as his predecessor is set to be impeached. What matters for the US now is a united front from lawmakers to support the economy against the latest wave of COVID-19.
Review of the week: Everything is up
Last Updated: September 30, 2025
Markets have had a stellar run, despite mixed news on inoculations. It’s in everyone’s interests for asset prices to remain high, but that’s no guarantee they will stay that way. As always, diversification is key.