Markets not reflecting public fear
The murder of past Japanese Prime Minister Abe is a reminder of how much we should value our public servants and politicians. We should be grateful to all our politicians that they are prepared to do a job we need so much. Whether they are exercising high office or merely representing us, they are invested with great expectation, much responsibility but little immediate power to meet those expectations. Few of them are self-serving, but all are at risk because they must be prepared to disagree publicly with other people in our society. Here, we remember Jo Cox and David Amess.
A month of negatives: June monthly market returns review
June was not a strong month for global equities, which declined 5% for UK£ sterling investors on the back of worries around an upcoming global recession. In fact, the first six months of 2022 proved to be the worst first half of the year in more than 50 years for major equity markets. The negative sentiment was mainly driven by further tightening monetary policy measures and attempts by most of the major central banks to tame inflation.
UK government crashes but markets shrug
At the time of writing, Boris Johnson is still Prime Minister in name, if not in substance. The slow-motion collapse of his government dramatically picked up pace last Tuesday night, with the sudden resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid and coincided with a sharp fall in sterling against the US dollar.