Are UK markets overstretched? December 21, 2017 | City Talk With the FTSE 100 and All-Share a wee bit below their all-time highs and valuations above average, many fear equities are too high and will soon fall. However, in our view, such worries are misplaced. Valuations aren’t predictive, and markets routinely set all-time highs during bull markets. We expect UK markets to keep making chart-topping [...]
Another #MeToo category: The bitter loser December 20, 2017 Until now, the #MeToo movement has bothered me more than it inspired me. It lacked nuance, I thought, failing to distinguish – as some commentators pointed out – between sexual aggressors (who should be in jail), persistent harassers (who should be sacked and blacklisted), and sleazebags of the hand-on-knee variety (who deserve ridicule, but not [...]
Doubts about ‘value investing’ have returned to their pre-dotcom crash high December 18, 2017 | City Talk Is legendary investor Warren Buffett losing his golden touch? On our Value Perspective investment blog, we would never dream of suggesting such a thing but type “Buffett losing touch” into Google and you will find plenty of financial commentators have, from time to time, had no such qualms. What is really interesting, however, is not [...]
Why consider investing in Asia now? Seven charts that tell the story December 15, 2017 | City Talk Asian stock markets (Asia Pacific, excluding Japan) have seen a decent recovery in the past 18 months. After such periods, there is a natural tendency to assume there will be a pause for breath. This is when equity valuations can be helpful. When money has been invested when valuations were low, it has, historically, resulted [...]
Outlook 2018: Another good year for investors? December 14, 2017 | City Talk As investors look ahead to a new year, they could be forgiven for wondering whether they will be as pleasantly surprised in 2018 as they were in 2017. A number of political worries on the horizon this time last year signally failed to materialise, including the likely shape of President Trump’s trade policies, the rise [...]
Should you hold Bitcoin as part of a diversified portfolio? December 13, 2017 | City Talk Amid the hoopla over the recent meteoric Bitcoin price rise – from $968 at the end of 2016 to over $16,500 on 11 December 2017 – some are now questioning whether the cryptocurrency should be taken more seriously. While we don’t agree that you should hold Bitcoin as part of a diversified portfolio, we believe [...]
The investment lesson from Nike’s humble start – and the ‘$35’ swoosh logo December 13, 2017 | City Talk Most books about successful businesses or entrepreneur’s autobiographies follow a pattern. There will be stumbles along the way but there is almost always a sense of inevitability, the feeling that everything is going to turn out fine. Read Shoe Dog, however, and you will be continually amazed that, most days, entrepreneur Phil Knight was able [...]
UK real wages to drop in 2018 due to Brexit and inflation, report says December 12, 2017 A combination of the effects of Brexit and rising inflation will push UK wages down next year, according to new research from US firm Korn Ferry. A report from the group reveals that, adjusted for inflation, employees in the UK are expected to see a real wage decrease of 0.5 per cent in 2018, compared [...]
Finally, all UK banks pass the stress tests: is now the time to invest? December 8, 2017 Imagine you emerged blinking from your bunker in the wake of this: interest rates up to 4 per cent the value of the pound down more than a quarter unemployment up almost 10 per cent residential property prices down by a third commercial real estate prices down by two-fifths world and UK GDP down 2.4 [...]
The problem with bitcoin’s own ‘P/E’-style valuation measure December 8, 2017 | City Talk As the perceived worth of a single bitcoin criss-crossed its way around the $10,000 (£7,455) mark for much of last week, on The Value Perspective blog, we revisited articles from 20 June 2017 and 20 October 2017, when one bitcoin respectively bought you $2,779 and very nearly $6,000. Each time our primary concern was there [...]
