Could fortunes be turning for British stocks, asks Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund Manager Alexandra Jackson. As the UK prepares to vote in the sunshine, investors seem more optimistic than they’ve been for years.
In the KNOW blog
The latest news and views from our professional adviser blog
5 mins
17 June 2024
An electric future
<p>From checking our phones and firing up our laptops, to getting in the car or the train to work, energy, in all its forms, is the lifeblood of our society. And just as we only think about our circulatory system when things go wrong, we often take energy for granted until it’s not there.</p>
4 mins
3 June 2024
AI: just what the doctor ordered
Since joining our Multi-Asset Team earlier this year as a fixed income analyst, Sally Hoang has really enjoyed the cross-asset lens that’s used when analysing investments. Combined with her background as a pharmacist, it helps her understand the potential for AI in healthcare.
4 mins
30 May 2024
Can sustainable bonds offer shelter from the storm?
<p class="text-align-justify">Last week’s UK inflation numbers represent yet another bump in the sometimes painfully twisty route to lower interest rates. The Bank of England (BoE) had predicted that the latest UK consumer price inflation data would show it falling sharply from 3.2% to 2.1% – within striking distance of the bank’s inflation target. </p>
5 mins
14 May 2024
Are govvies as exciting as murder in the Mediterranean?
Government bonds have given investors whiplash as their yields bounce around the place like a psychopath in 1950s Italy. Yet multi-asset portfolios fund manager David Coombs explains why he’s holding on tight.
2 mins
3 May 2024
Challenger comebacks
Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund equity analyst Robbie Carr marvels at the speed of an FA Cup comeback. It makes him wonder if UK small and mid-sized companies could soon post a rapid recovery of their own.
3 mins
29 April 2024
Stopping the Exodus to Uncle Sam
<p>When I was about 14, I made my first visit to the US, a holiday on the West Coast that took in Disneyland in LA. Having spent my childhood visiting Barry Island’s and Porthcawl’s fun fairs, I was blown away by the bigger, shinier, cleaner but much more expensive US equivalent. Driving the dodgems to the soundtrack of the Bay City Rollers was never the same again.</p>
4 mins
24 April 2024
Locking in bond income for longer
Bond fund manager Stuart Chilvers explains why lower interest rates won’t sap corporate bonds’ juicy income yields straightaway.
4 mins
9 April 2024
Power to the people
<p>We are smack bang in the middle of a herculean effort to shift our world from one that runs on carbon to one driven by cleaner energy. A lot of attention and investment is going into generating more clean power, yet we think it’s just as important to reduce our energy needs and improve the infrastructure required to handle that low-carbon future.</p>
3 mins
4 April 2024
Are you concentrating?
<p>The massive concentration of the American stock market is a hot topic. If investors in US stocks had owned the seven largest companies by market cap in 2023, they’d have more than doubled their money. Without those seven, the S&P 500 large cap index made just 8%. Because of this huge imbalance in returns, the weight of the top 10 most valuable stocks in the S&P is now an eyewatering 32%.</p>
