Knowledge and Insight

Consumers, companies and investors alike are increasingly recognising that environmental, social and governance considerations are becoming vital to businesses’ long-term success. The benefits for wider society are also likely to be far-reaching.

Chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth looks back on a good week for equity and bond markets and ponders whether the optimism can hold.

News that America’s Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission will conduct wide-ranging probes into the market power of several tech giants sent their share prices tumbling. Investors fear growth-busting breakups. Telltale warning signs have been floating around for a year, yet they deepened in May and June. These companies have come a long way from the garages and dorm rooms where they were founded. Fresh-faced innovation has given way to mistrusted maturity. The FANGs are just too big and too powerful to be left alone.

A growing number of us are reducing our meat and dairy consumption. What are the alternatives and can we really save the planet by abandoning animal protein?

While the Brexit deadline draws closer, the route to a deal between the UK and the European Union (EU) shows no signs of materialising.

After getting all fired up for interest rate cuts, decent American economic data spoiled the mood last week. Our chief investment officer, Julian Chillingworth, notes the growing disconnect between investors’ expectations and economic reality.

Brazil’s sunny tide has turned and investment in the country is now in marked decline. This slump follows the cautious optimism that took hold after the election of president Jair Bolsonaro last year, whose policy paralysis has done his country no favours. Latin American equities don’t look particularly cheap and neither do its currencies; the Brazilian real is near its long-term average, despite the economic malaise. 

There is more gold in a single iPhone 4 than in a kilogram of the highest-grade gold ore. Extracting rare elements from disused consumer electronics has become a profitable business and is seen by many as environmentally friendly, but the reality of urban mining is complex.

US stocks posted their strongest first-six-month performance in decades this year. This boom is a bit incongruous considering many of the risks that have dogged investors in 2019, notes our chief investment officer, Julian Chillingworth.