Category: IC Insights
The eighth month of the year is usually calm and collected, as investors seek to break away for the holiday season to absorb the main trends from the year so far. That’s not too difficult in 2020 – we have an economically crippling virus, policymakers are supporting things…
The Investment Committee
4th September, 2020
Chancellor’s Summer Statement…
With the job retention scheme tapering over the summer months, there was always a need for more stimulus to protect against a quick rise in unemployment as we head towards the end of the year. The question is whether what was announced on Wednesday was enough?…
The Investment Committee
10th July, 2020
Quarter 2 2020 Investment Review…
Market Review From time to time, financial markets get disconnected from reality. Though there are few occasions where this has happened to the same extent as it has over the last three months. Economies around the world have been plunged into recession, a billion or so…
The Investment Committee
2nd July, 2020
June Performance Update – How Are We Doing & What Matters From Here?…
A famous economist once said “it is better to be roughly right, than precisely wrong”. This bares truth in investment management just as much as anywhere else. As an industry, we are obsessed with trying to forecast the future, down to specific details such as how many people…
The Investment Committee
19th June, 2020
May Portfolio Update – No Rest for the Wicked…
Hindsight is a wonderful but dangerous thing. It’s best used to constructively assess previous actions, aiming to learn lessons that can be applied to the future. Often though, it is used to manipulate a situation for one’s own interests. Questioning our high death numbers compared to other countries…
The Investment Committee
4th June, 2020
Governments in the west are spending and borrowing on a vast scale as they counter the effects of the pandemic. In the UK, public borrowing jumped to £62 billion in April alone—massively exceeding the previous monthly high of £22 billion in April 2012. Providing context, the UK government…
The Investment Committee
29th May, 2020
We encounter behavioural biases many times within our daily routine. Under the current circumstances for example, “confirmation bias” is very prevalent, which represents the tendency to search and favour information that supports our own beliefs. Most of us are likely to place more weight on an article that…
The Investment Committee
8th May, 2020
Investment Committee Update – Plotting the Journey…
As governments around the world start to consider their exit strategies from lockdown, they will be thinking long and hard around the risks and how best to manage them. It will be imperative to have plans in place to monitor and evaluate containment, so they can ensure the…
The Investment Committee
17th April, 2020
Coronavirus – Far from over, but glimmers of hope…
The last five weeks have been transformational for the world. We are all feeling the effects of the change, not least the rapid pace that it arrived. At first there was panic buying of toilet rolls, milk and bread. Investment markets fell indiscriminately as people sold assets to…
The Investment Committee
10th April, 2020
Quarter 1 2020 Investment Review…
We understand that worrying about your finances is not an added burden you need to carry during a time like this and so we want to alleviate this worry as much as we can. We want to reassure you that all of the team are working…
DB Wood Team
3rd April, 2020