Are central banks transforming from hawks into doves? Last week was like the other four weeks of 2023: dominated by central bank action, inflation, and despondency over the UK economy. Meanwhile, stock and bond markets stayed buoyant. The monthly US jobs report was a...



Goldilocks in the air Recent macroeconomic data releases across the western world report declining rates of inflation and no longer overheating (but nevertheless still positive) economic growth. In the US, the important milestone of the rate of personal consumption...

Slowing growth throws markets into a bind Last Monday we wrote that markets were rising because bad economic news was good news in terms of lessening concerns over interest rate rises, beyond what is already expected and therefore priced in. Last week, various...

Football fever saves UK from recession The new year is proving to be a happy one for almost all asset classes and regions. The FTSE 100’s intraday all-time high of 7903.50 was less than 100 points away on Friday, and we were closer than we were the previous week. The...

January surprises “Welcome to 2023” said the note on the restaurant door. The door was shut, the lights were off, and another note explained that rail strikes meant staff and customers were unable to get there. All the venues in this City-of-London street were closed...

Fed up before Christmas As the year comes to a close, some of the year’s big trends have showed signs of stopping or even reversing. Are the current market moves really down to the market’s concerns about interest rate policy? This year has been tumultuous in market...

Not so bad? Almost good December has begun on a positive footing for investors. A renewed pivot in sentiment, with market participants choosing to focus on the positives rather than the negatives, has brought the third extended market upswing of 2022, with various...

The Cambridge Weekly – 28th November 2022 Markets give thanks The last week of November is generally a quiet one for markets. Many professional investors head back to family homes in the days before Thanksgiving and will have already closed down their risk positions...

Plugging the holes The Autumn Statement, budget-in-all-but-name, had been signposted as very likely to bring bad news to UK taxpayers, as the third Conservative government of this parliament changed course from Trussonomics back to Rishinomics. As we had suspected in...



Signs of ‘peak inflation’ emboldens markets There were three big market-moving stories last week: the US midterm elections, the latest crash in the surreal world of crypto currencies, and the release of US inflation data for October. By last Friday, it was the...

Diverging paths accompanied by seasonally scary messages Considering the gloomy news last week from central banks in the US and UK, investors enjoyed a decent enough start to November. Following on from the rebound over the second half of October, it has been welcome...

US slows, Europe’s winter outlook improves, UK back to start The most turbulent October experienced by UK bond markets since 2008 is drawing to an end and one could easily get the impression nothing of significance happened. Sterling is back to where it traded just...



The world beyond the UK Given the volatility in UK politics last week, broader capital markets felt like a sea of calm in comparison. As far as the outcomes from the political side are concerned, markets had already priced in the upside on sterling, based on the...

Change in the air It is not often that market action in the UK capital market moves the global capital market dial, given our domestic stock market comprises just 3.1% of the global total and 4.1% of the global total government bond market. However, over the course of...



Reading the runes of last week’s market bounce Market volatility has been in the air all year and, given the macroeconomic backdrop, this is not at all surprising. A weakening global economy marred by war and labour market-driven supply squeezes, while simultaneously...