Recent Posts

This month we’ve already reviewed the Bonkers Portfolio, which has some great long-term performance. Here we review the Dynamic Cautious Portfolio. While the Bonkers Portfolio is simple to explain, the Cautious Portfolio is, perhaps ironically, more challenging to define and construct. We take a look at what’s in it and how it has done over the last 6 months. [read more]

More than a billion people globally will celebrate the Year of the Rat. Should you be embracing China, from an investment perspective that is? Or should you be avoiding it for a raft of reasons, the latest being coronavirus?

It was a strong year for the Chinese stock market, reflected by the average China fund being up in excess of 22% in 2019. Despite the best efforts of Trump, China equities have been impressively resilient in 2019. Whether Trump-inspired or otherwise, heightened geo-political conflict looks like being the “new normal”, and investors are more relaxed about such tensions.
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We are now one-fifth of the way into what we have called The Asian Century - 20 years that went by rapidly. Let’s see how that has gone, and also consider the outlook. [read more]

For a number of years we highlighted the twin problems of debt and demographics, and the political risks if the politicians did not get to grips with their implications.

As debt levels increase to ever more giddy levels, the diversion of capital and payments of interest act like sucking oxygen out of the economy.
As populations age, consumer spending is more subdued and State commitments rise.
And lack of political leadership has allowed unelected central bankers to make it up as they go along, and a bad situation in 2007-2009 is now even worse. [read more]

Looking at the main asset classes it’s been a strong second half to 2019 for equity sectors, while bonds have been dull. This is a contrast to the end of 2018 when the majority of sector averages were negative.

UK Smaller Companies is the top performing sector, while just three sectors slip into negative territory for the last 6 months of 2019. Technology has continued to do well along with China, Asian and Emerging Markets while the US has started to flag by comparison. [read more]