Category: IC Insights
The ‘price’ of something often doesn’t reflect its true ‘value’. We say things like ‘I wouldn’t pay that price’, getting drawn into the numbers and not necessarily what it means to us. The price of something is merely the cost to buy or sell, whether that’s an investment portfolio or…
Ashley Brooks
1st September, 2023
Blog, IC Insights, Uncategorised
Someone asked me last week “what’s the most important lesson you’ve learnt across the last 5 years?” Well, that’s tough as a lot has happened, as covered in our recent blog ‘A Unique 5 Year Period draws to an end‘ . To be honest I thought it would be…
Ashley Brooks
4th August, 2023
Investors came into the second quarter feeling like the worst was behind us. Inflation was falling consistently across the globe, interest rates looked close to peaking, and so far, economies were showing no signs of a recession. In most regions that story has continued to play out. US inflation is…
Alex Chappell
6th July, 2023
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