Category: IC Insights
Looking at the year so far, our portfolios remain comfortably above benchmarks. At the same time, overall returns have been lower than we expected at this point given the prevailing market challenges. In the first chart we are showing our Low to Medium and Medium Risk Portfolios against their respective…
Alex Chappell
31st May, 2023
March’s banking system wobbles started to abate in April. It isn’t that the issue is solved yet, but that it looks limited to poorly managed, regional US banks, and as we expected, policymakers quickly stepped in to ensure stability in the system. To counter that we had more challenging inflation…
Alex Chappell
5th May, 2023
Q1 2023 Market Review 2022 will go down as the worst year for equity and bond markets in 45 years. There have been periods where in isolation, equities or bonds have performed worse, but never at the same time. The re-pricing of all assets for a higher inflation and interest…
DB Wood Team
6th April, 2023
After a strong January on the back of falling inflation expectations, markets calmed down in February, realising that the path to peak interest rates and lower inflation might not be a straight one. Ironically, what has taken the froth off the January performance has been stronger than expected economic data…
The Planning Team
3rd March, 2023
Being an investor can be an emotionally challenging journey. When things are bad, it can feel like they will never get better, and when things are good, we expect them to remain that way. Its human nature to extrapolate recent trends and expect them to continue, and its that exact…
Alex Chappell
3rd February, 2023
The market environment of 2022 was vastly different from the decade that came before it. Low inflation became high inflation, supportive policy moved to be restrictive, and with that, investment markets went through a huge period of adjustment. Policymakers have always feared higher inflation because it can become self-fulfilling. People…
DB Wood Team
6th January, 2023
Yesterday’s financial statement delivered on the expectations that the UK chancellor has been setting in recent weeks. The budget delivered a tough and necessary fiscal response, supporting the view that the alternative of borrowing more to deliver growth, simply does not work when debt levels are elevated. It is worth…
DB Wood Team
18th November, 2022
Bear (down) markets are a frustrating but necessary part of investing. The whole premise of risk taking is that it is generally rewarded, which means that equity markets should move up over time. Statistically that’s the case in 7 out of every 10 years, with the other three characterised by…
Alex Chappell
4th November, 2022
There is a fair amount of frenzied media commentary around Global and UK Inflation at present. We therefore thought it was sensible to try to provide some perspective around the effects of inflation on our Portfolios, and the squeeze on income, neither of which in the short term are pleasant.
Ashley Brooks
21st October, 2022
We often write to dumb down some of the financial market commentary, which tends to be provocative to generate more views and clicks. In the context of the last few months though, the media probably haven’t done enough to highlight some of the extreme moves that have been occurring. Starting…
DB Wood Team
7th October, 2022