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Balancing actsUS stocks were weighed by tech last week, but the UK and Europe were reasonable. Britons suspect a capital gains tax (CGT) hike in autumn – which is keeping advisers busy but hasn’t had any effect on UK stocks, and we...

Late summer heatwave Global stocks have turned things around from the early August sell-off. Up until the end of last week, the gains of the recovery were strong and remarkably stable. Last week’s main capital markets event was Federal Reserve chair Jerome...

Tornado rather than hurricane The market storm looked like it would become a hurricane in early August, but it ended as fast as whirlwind: stocks climbed last week without hesitation. Positivity is good, but a little unnerving. Our medium-term outlook is bright,...

Market correction turns into pothole Last week started with some of the worst stock market losses in nearly two years – prompted by recession fears and Japanese liquidity problems – but ended with most of those losses recovered. Volatility spiked across most...

Central bank week Another nervy week for investors: a slew of interest rate decisions, weak US employment data and disappointing Q2 earnings reports from US tech firms (including nasty results from Intel, which laid off 15,000 employees. On the central bank front,...

Don’t fear the rebalance The rough patch for global stocks continues – yet again concentrated in the frothy US mega-caps. Smaller caps continue to be a bright spot, but in aggregate these gains are being outweighed by large-cap losses. The “Magnificent 7”...

Shock, rotation, growth? An astounding week, that started with an attempted assassination of Donald Trump, ended with the largest global IT outage in history. As a result, markets now assume Trump will be president – and have priced in the tax cut...

Lower inflation, less profits? Global stocks fell into the latter part of the week – thanks to a sell-off for US mega-caps. Smaller caps and other regions outperformed, in a reversal of the year’s trend so far. UK stocks did well, with...

New government, same economy The election results were emphatic but full of contradictions. Labour achieved one of the largest majorities ever with the lowest winning vote share, and it did so by promising change while emphasising continuity. The contradiction most relevant to...

Politics, where policy takes a back seatLast Friday marked the end of the second quarter, culminating in the day after the first 2024 US Presidential debate, widely seen as disastrous for Biden, yet financial markets have remained relatively steady. Institutional investors are...

Stock market highs don’t feel so high. Even though global stocks reached another all-time, the mood feels subdued. This is partly seasonal – a US national holiday and June’s option expiry date distorted trading – but partly because growth is so uneven....

Still mostly sticking to the plan Amid a cacophony of political noise, it was the Federal Reserve’s updated interest rate forecast that drove markets last week. The signal that rates would be cut just once this year was called “hawkish”, but we...

ECB’s Lagarde makes rate cut history Rate cuts at last. The ECB delivered a 25 basis point cut last week, as expected, and markets got excited about easier monetary policy again. ECB president Lagarde spoke about “dialling back” now that inflation is...

Markets Consolidate Global stocks were slightly down last week, but with no obvious trigger. It felt like consolidation through month-end rebalancing, after many stock markets hit all-time highs in May. In that respect, the week’s action was reassuring: previous returns solidified, and...

Nvidia versus the Fed Having had recovered to previous highs, markets were mostly flat to slightly down overall this week. Despite the surprise election call dominating our headlines, global markets were preoccupied with Nvidia’s corporate earnings and the US Federal Reserve meeting...

Pluses and minuses Global stocks edged higher last week, led by the US. The S&P 500’s slight gain was enough to push it to all-time highs, making a fairly average week seem like a great one. US equities were propelled by April’s...

A blooming May for the UK Markets had a bright week, thanks to weaker US job market data and hints that the Federal Reserve might cut rates. US consumer sentiment seems to be wavering thanks to higher inflation, but the Fed thinks...

Inflation, a common side effect of growth Volatility is back, but it’s not all bad. UK stocks fared well, thanks to BHP’s takeover bid for Anglo American, and China is recovering from January blues. On the other end is Japan, whose equities...

Market quiet on the Middle Eastern front Israel and Iran’s escalating conflict presents huge risks for the world, but at the moment we can take comfort that the respective aerial bombardments seem to be more about showing force than hurting each other....

What the return of volatility tells us Equities were fairly stable in the US and UK last week, despite bond yields moving higher. Europe was the opposite: stocks fell despite falling yields. We might have thought bond volatility would hurt risk assets...