“I went through absolute stress and mayhem. I couldn’t go out, because people were constantly on my back all the time” Cher

 Whilst popular music stars – like Cher in the quote above – can hide at times of strife this is not a luxury offered to politicians, and especially Prime Ministers like Theresa May who called the election just over six weeks ago at a time of a significant opinion poll lead, and closed the election period yesterday without a direct Conservative Party Parliamentary majority. All of this means the days of Parliamentary jockeying last seen by UK political watchers in the years before 2015 are inexorably back, and questions of whether Theresa May can stay as UK Prime Minister are necessarily circulating. Simply put, her political gamble in April has not paid off. May-hem indeed.Continue reading

  “Travelling expands the mind rarely” Hans Christian Andersen

As seen in every classic fairytale, much lies behind the regular everyday façade presented in the first few pages of a story. During May, the UK stock market took over the monthly performance leadership from a French equity index, anticipating the (now confirmed) election of President Macron, despite the UK’s own political vote looking to be a far closer event than most would have thought even a handful of weeks ago. Continue reading

Travelling to the Annual General Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway to hear Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger talk about their outlook on investment is probably one of the most rewarding and exciting trips any value investor could make.

How much longer Munger at 92 and Buffett at 86 years can keep going is anyone’s guess but there is certainly life in the grand old men of investment showing no difficulty in answering questions for over five hours in total. If the numbers attending (40,000 plus) demonstrated anything, it is that as long as they keep going, the crowds will keep coming to hear two of the most incredible investment minds of our time.

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“Elections have consequences” -Scott Walker.

Whilst ‘Brenda from Bristol’ captivated the British public with her displeasure about the upcoming UK election, investors elsewhere in Europe were celebrating as the first round of the French Presidential contest appeared to continue the trend started by the Dutch vote in March of stepping away from the populist brink. The French market was the strongest performer among not only Western European markets, but in global mainstream equity markets during April as the pollsters for once recently got their predictions correct.Continue reading

“’Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody” Franklin Pierce Adams

If 2016 brought us the Brexit referendum and the U.S. Presidential election, then European politics in 2017 is all about the ballots in the Netherlands, France and Germany, with a few Italian, Greek and embryonic Brexit discussions thrown in for good measure. Continue reading

ASOS performed well in Q1 of 2017 on the back of increased capital investment alongside foreign exchange benefits. Over the quarter, the stock returned 21.78% and 86% over the 12 months to the end of Q1 2017. Earlier this month the company released a strong set of financial accounts for the first 6 months of its 2017 financial year for the period ended 28^th Feb 2017.Continue reading

This Budget was Mr Hammond’s first – and last – Spring Budget. From now on Budgets will take place in Autumn and there will be a financial statement each Spring. Thus, the next Budget is probably a little over eight months away although, as 2016 revealed, much can happen even over such a brief period.

The backdrop to this Budget was very much dictated by the events between March and November last year. In what proved to be his last Spring Budget, George Osborne performed a range of financial gymnastics to hang onto his one remaining borrowing target, the elimination of the budget deficit by 2019/20. Continue reading

Leafing through the reports on the performances of European financial markets during February two aspects stood out. The first was that the average equity investor did quite well with many markets moving to, at or around, all-time or recent highs by the end of the month. The second was that ‘uncertainty’ appeared loud and proud in every report.

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A little over a month into 2017 and it is increasingly clear that there are only two investing themes to worry about over the balance of the year. If I had to write a couple of paragraphs summary of January it would look something like this:Continue reading

Despite a challenging environment, Scapa Group performed particularly well in Q4 of 2016 as a result of strong trading trends in its Healthcare and Industrial segments combined with growth through acquisition and foreign exchange benefits. Over the quarter, the stock is up 25.7%, and 58.2% over 2016. The company announced that after a strong performance so far this year, it should deliver higher returns than previously expected in its full year 2016 financial accounts.Continue reading

As we enter the New Year, there’s no better time to work on fine-tuning your financial plans for the future and reviewing your current investments. Our team at Raymond James Market Harborough recognise the importance of having a financial plan in place to achieve your financial goals, and we endeavour to help you every step of the way. We work together with clients in different stages of the investor life cycle to plan for a number of life events; including buying a house, retirement, and even when the time comes, we help to plan for the passing down of wealth to the next generation.

To help put you on the right track to achieving your financial goals, here are our key tips for investing in 2017. If you would like more information on our services, we are offering a free New Year review of your investments by our wealth management professionals. Why not start now on your journey to achieving your financial goals?Continue reading

The last Budget on 16 March now seems a distant memory from a past era. Back then the Chancellor was George Osborne, the Prime Minister was David Cameron, the UK looked likely to remain a member of the EU after 23 June and Donald Trump was not considered a serious US presidential candidate.

Wind forward just over eight months and there is a new Chancellor, a new Prime Minister and the UK is preparing for Brexit by March 2019 as President-elect Trump prepares to take office. The economics have changed more than a little, too, confounding a wide variety of expert forecasts:Continue reading

Company description: Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company with more than 90 years of innovation and leadership in diabetes care. The Company is engaged in discovery, development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products. The Company’s business segments include diabetes, obesity care, and biopharmaceuticals.

Competitive Advantage:

With almost 50% market share by volume of the global insulin market, Novo Nordisk is the leading provider of diabetes-care products in the world. The company’s global scale combined with significant barriers to new competition; provide a strong level of business protection for what we believe is a persistent business.Continue reading

Global markets were shocked yesterday morning as controversial Republican candidate Donald Trump was announced as the 45^th President of the USA. The election race ended on Wednesday morning (UK time), with the state of Wisconsin pushing the Property Tycoon over the 270 vote threshold.

Markets had previously been pricing in a Clinton victory after the Democratic candidate was acquitted by the FBI following a second investigation into the email arrangements as secretary of state on Sunday 6^th November, just two days before Election Day. In an unexpected turn of events, the Republicans won a ‘clean sweep’ victory, taking control of the Senate, the House of Representatives and also the Supreme Court.Continue reading

‘Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?’ – Robert Orben

Political watching from a European time zone in 2016 has all been about the hour from 2am to 3am (London time). In late June, consensus expectations of a Brexit referendum ‘remain’ vote were quashed, as ‘leave’ surprisingly triumphed. It was around a similar time earlier today that the seemingly iron-clad grip Hillary Clinton had on the Presidential vote started to slip away, much to widespread astonishment here in Europe.

Prior to the last year or two, President-elect Donald Trump was famous for a couple of matters in Europe: his role in the American version of The Apprentice and his interest in Scottish golf course development. Today he is a couple of months or so away from taking the most powerful political office in the world.Continue reading

The M&G Property Portfolio held by many of our clients entered a temporary suspension of trading on the 5^th July due to uncertainty in the market.  Since its suspension, our investment team has been monitoring the Commercial property market within the wider macroeconomic context and we have received regular updates on the progress of the fund in bringing about the resumption of trading. We recently received an update from M&G CEO William Nott that the fund is now due to resume trading at midday on Friday 4^th November. Continue reading

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDS) is an Anglo-Dutch multinational integrated oil and gas company which explores and extracts crude oil and natural gas around the globe. RDS, headquartered in the Netherlands, was recently named the 5^th largest corporation in the world in terms of revenue in the 2016 Fortune Global 500 list. The company sells a number of different products, including gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, marine fuel, lubricants, bitumen and sulphur in around 70 countries.

RDS was added to our larger discretionary portfolios around March this year after a significant decline in the oil price presented us with an opportunity to buy in at reduced prices. Continue reading

Telit Communications PLC is a UK based technological company operating in the Communications and Networking industry. In short, it specialises in the development, manufacture and distribution of communication modules which allow machines, devices and vehicles to communicate on wireless networks. Telit has been a constituent of the AIM portfolio since its inception in January 2015, and it is a company which we continue to view favourably going forward.Continue reading

Powerflute has featured in the AIM portfolio since its inception, and it is a company which we feel shows great promise in the long term. It is a paper and packaging group which seeks to acquire companies with strong fundamentals whose performance can be improved through a combination of management focus and targeted investment.Continue reading

The 2016 Spring Budget announced a number of changes affecting investors. A summary of the key changes from the latest budget, and changes which are due to come into force in the new tax year are listed below:Continue reading

The AIM portfolio: Our AIM portfolio provides investors with Inheritance Tax relief after two years through investment in 26 smaller, high growth AIM companies. The portfolio allows investors to retain control over their investments, and aims to achieve growth above inflation.Continue reading

CVS had a very good year in 2015, achieving a cumulative return for the year of 70.94%. This is particularly notable as it is one of the lowest risk stocks in the AIM portfolio, with a standard deviation of 18.42%.Continue reading

The current continuation of volatile global equity markets is more of an opportunity than a threat – even if it currently feels uncomfortable to think this.Continue reading

Yesterday, M&G Investments joined property fund providers Aviva and Standard Life in announcing a temporary suspension of trading in their UK commercial property fund held in our portfolios.Continue reading

Despite a slowdown in emerging markets and China in particular, our outlook for equities remains positive overall.

Growth in developed markets fuelled by consumer consumption, a lower oil price and a continuation of an ease in monetary policy by central banks looks promising for equity prices over the long term.

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