A bit of a downer We review November’s cheery asset performance below. Early December is also currently on a positive track and trading volumes have been higher than November’s averages generally, suggesting quite a bit of capital is being put to work by investors....

Price shock reversal November brought investors the opposite of October and turned most portfolio returns into positive mid single-digit numbers for the year. As we have written here over the past weeks, the distinct turn in sentiment that drove markets in November...

US economy slows to our pace November remains a positive month in capital markets, although equities had a neutral week and longer bond prices have fallen back. UK government bonds (Gilts) have been the best performing bond market in the past few weeks, but the tax...

Inflation genie back in the bottle? Last week was another good one for most investors. In sterling terms, the strongest equity markets were in Europe with the DAX up 4.5% since last Friday afternoon. The biggest winners have been small and mid-sized firms; the UK...

Back pedalling central bankers The turnaround rally in stock and bond markets – started by the previous week’s dovish central bank comments – petered out towards the end of last week, with central bankers seemingly at pains to reverse their messaging, or at least...

The Cambridge Weekly –6th November 2023 Dovishness proves contagious Just how much change a week can bring to markets was amply visible during the last seven days. Last week we wrote about how negative sentiment in stock markets can turn into a self-perpetuating...

The resilience narrative comes under pressure A potentially meaningful change in correlations happened last week. In recent times, a fall in yields (and therefore a rise in bond prices) would go alongside rises in equity prices, particularly the mega-cap growth...

Bonds yield volatility has markets guessing While the human suffering in the Middle East conflict worsened as expected last week, it has not yet spread further across the region. Therefore, and as we wrote last week, markets have not particularly acknowledged the rise...

Capital markets and war Last week saw the world most certainly taken a turn for the worse from a humanitarian point of view. Pictures of the atrocities committed in the Middle East, and indeed the timing, drew immediate parallels with the Yom Kippur War of October...

Recession fears creeping back Financial markets are in one of those occasional periods where the world’s economic realities do not quite seem to match what some asset price moves seem to want to tell us. Last week and continuing the trend from the previous week, we...

Economic resilience is about to be tested Historically September has on average not been great for investors, and as it turns out this year is no exception to that norm. Both equities and bond valuations have declined and even though equities have not materially moved...

To yield or not to yield Last week, stocks and bonds were still bruised from the ‘hawkish pause’. The US Federal Reserve (Fed) announced last Wednesday that it would hold interest rates steady at 5.25-5.5% but threw in some stern forward guidance to dispel any doubts...

Central bank hawks determined to defang inflation The European Central Bank (ECB) raised rates last Thursday, with the majority of its Governing Council members concerned that the inflation parasite may be alive for a while longer. Of course, parasites can continue to...

Energy in focus - oil prices up and an ill wind for renewables Markets have been generally quiet at the start of September, but energy is again becoming an issue for equity and credit markets. Oil prices have risen since the start of the summer, with Brent crude...

New school term has the US back at the top of the class Summer is officially over, but we are none the wiser regarding the direction of the economy. Or are we? Well, we quite likely are, but just a bit and not enough to know if next month’s equity markets will be...

Transcontinental growth divergence We don’t seem to be able to get away from writing about how bond yields have been driving equity markets due to their influence on underlying valuation dynamics. We wrote about it the previous week, on many occasions over the past...