Fiscal floundering During a week when global stock markets continued their more gradual upwards trend, government policy was in full focus, but offered little in support. For the UK, it looks like ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ when official lockdown ends on...

More tunnel before the light The November rally in stock markets finally petered out last week as it felt as if ‘November finally got the memo about 2020’. This was despite further positive vaccine news that bolstered optimism for next year. Last Monday, US firm...

Change is in the air.    Investors have enjoyed another very good week. Optimism had already returned the previous week, with the US election eventually delivering a clear verdict. Last week then brought the news that literally everybody had been waiting and hoping...

Looking beyond the obvious We wrote only last week that markets hate uncertainty. Given that equity, bond and commodity markets were all quite a lot stronger at the end of the week, many investors must have gained clarity, if not optimism. There are a lot of important...

Unsettled week ahead – or behind? In the first article of The Cambridge Weekly we normally discuss the relevance of the weekly news flow for the development of our longer-term picture for our investors. Usually, our conclusion is that the noises of the week need to be...

Sunlit uplands or COVID gorge? Halloween is around the corner and markets had plenty to frighten them last week. Across Europe, the second wave of infections has risen higher than the first. While new lockdown measures are less stringent this time (schools and...

A review of 2020 – the K shaped recovery Positioning through the crisis Q3 outlook for 2020/21 Longer Term Focus: Brexit and the US Election

Watching and waiting A noticeable winter chill is in the air. The threat of fresh lockdown measures has become reality, with renewed restrictions coming into force not just in the UK, but across most of continental Europe as well. But unfortunately, the UK – once...

Baffling market optimism Following the unsteadiness of September, markets have further regained their composure and continue to drift upwards. This stands in stark contrast to the flow of bad news. The White House, centre of power for the mighty US, has become a COVID...

The Cambridge Weekly Update A recovery on hold September continues to bite equity markets. Stocks everywhere wobbled again last week and even though they bounced back, the S&P500 is down around 8% in US Dollar terms for the month. UK investors might notice less of...

Taking a step back to look forward Stock markets have stabilised and started trading sideways, in a sign of healthy consolidation following their extraordinary recovery rally since late March. Notably, the darlings of the recovery, namely US large cap tech and growth...

Market dynamic of a K-shaped recovery Markets’ summer holidays are over. Throughout August, risk assets made some impressive gains, while the global economy remained in its deepest ever recession. After equities were then catapulted to eye-watering valuation levels,...

Big tech gets bigger while the Fed takes the easy option In a week where Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign in earnest, global investors showed it is indeed “America first”. US equities continue to push at all-time highs, having recovered everything lost...

Fed leaves bond investors with that sinking feeling Capital markets were mostly steady – if a bit on edge – last week, as they have been for most of August. At least the US maintained positivity, although the extent of gains were not spectacular. Even so, both the...