The Cambridge Weekly – 24th December 2018
Fed tightens, market falls and economy keeps on going We wrote about our outlook for 2019 last week. After that slightly lengthy read, we thought a shorter note discussing what has caused market behaviour would be helpful. So, this week all eyes were on the US Federal...
The Cambridge Weekly – 17 December 2018
Cambridge’s 2019 Outlook Overview It’s fair to say that most investors and commentators are taking a fairly bleak view of 2019’s prospects. The rampant US growth engine that drove the global economy forward this year appears to have passed its peak and is likely to...
The Cambridge Weekly – 10 December 2018
Roller-coaster Advent The news of a 90-day trade truce between presidents Trump and Xi’s was widely welcomed this week. It was probably the most that could be expected of their much-anticipated dinner conversation at the fringes of the G20 summit last weekend in...
The Cambridge Weekly – 3 December 2018
Predicaments As November draws to a close, global stock markets have provided a positive last week to an otherwise bleak month for investors. And as it stands, it is not just October and November but the whole of 2018 that has turned into a disappointment for...
The Cambridge Weekly – 26 November
Muted replay of 2015 or end of cycle approaching 2019? It certainly helped nerves this week that the US was distracted by their Thanksgiving celebrations and politics in the UK calmed down, after the Eurosceptic Tory rebels’ spectacular failure to deliver on last...
The Cambridge Weekly – 19 November
Keep calm and carry on It has undeniably been the most unnerving week in UK politics since the week following the Brexit referendum, when the British electorate unexpectedly rejected the EU status quo. Representatives of both sides have finally agreed on a withdrawal...
The Cambridge Weekly – 5 November 2018
Good-bye cathartic October What a difference one month can make. At the end of September, one of the biggest conundrums of 2018 was the divergence of stock market returns between the US (strongly positive) and the rest of the world (flat). October’s stock market...
The Cambridge Weekly – 29 October 2018
Stock markets suffer liquidity squeeze During the recovery from February’s stock market correction, we wrote on these pages that the upsurge in equities – particularly in the US – felt a little uncomfortable. This was because the correction had not followed the usual...
The Cambridge Weekly – 22 October 2018
Complicated picture suggests taking a step back The global equity market sell-off calmed this week, even though the predicted bounce back petered out sooner than most had expected with selling pressures already returning mid-week. This left stock markets roughly where...
Cambridge Weekly – 15 October 2018
Autopsy of a stock market sell-off Last week, we wondered why stock markets had not reacted more negatively to the latest upward wave of bond yields, when this had led to a formidable stock market correction back in February. As it turned out over the course of this...
Cambridge Weekly – 8 October 2018
Bond market sell-off surprise Having written only last week that Trump’s trade wars may prove a bizarrely supportive factor towards safely unwinding overvalued bond markets, I feel as if I provoked bond markets to prove me wrong. Amongst the other news stories, bond...
Cambridge Weekly – 1 October 2018
Poor politics containing bond market risks? As September and Q3/2018 drew to a close, investors enjoyed a second consecutive week of positive returns, ending the period not only with positive returns overall, but also in an uptrend. End of an era for the Fed The era...
Cambridge Weekly – 24 September 2018
Brexit clamour vs. real market news The UK’s establishment had pinned high hopes on a Brexit breakthrough at the EU’s Salzburg (non-Brexit specific) summit. But the rest of the EU had a different agenda, so disappointment was inevitable. Judging by the vastly...
Cambridge Weekly – 14th September 2018
Financial crisis – 10 years on It was 10 years ago this week that US investment bank Lehman Brothers was allowed to default. This event marked the beginning of the ultimate escalation from a severe credit crunch to a full blown global financial sector meltdown. The...
Earnings are growing, why worry?
Chris Swanepoel, our estimable head of AIM investments, says that he doesn’t know anybody who has stopped doing their weekly shopping because of Brexit or Donald Trump.His job is to invest in companies and a lot of them are doing better than OK.Companies...
Trump’s trade wars – Hard Brexit demonstration potential?
What a week of drama and upset! For all the drama in the football, the political and global economic side were even more dramatic – at least from an investment managers’ point of view. We had suggested last week that the UK government may experience some...
It is getting hot
It was a week with two faces – strong economic data across the developed world on the one side and disruptive political rhetoric on the other. Donald Trump’s administration imposed tariffs of 25% on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports and...