The news this past Wednesday that Barclays is once again offering 100% LTV mortgages, albeit with significant strings attached and hoops to jump through, brought memories of the financial crisis flooding back.
As Leigh Harrison puts mountaineering at the top of his to-do-list in retirement, can Columbia Threadneedle’s UK equities franchise continue to scale the dizzy heights without him?
The resilience of the British consumer was supposed to be something United Kingdom equities investors could rely on in the face of various other headwinds but things have changed.
With the eurozone currently experiencing deflation, inflation-linked bonds are probably not the first thing on the minds of investors.
As the largest in the world, the relative strengths and weaknesses continue to fuel the influence of the US economy globally.
A combination of strong corporate earnings and the stabilisation of both the Chinese renminbi and global oil price are making “deeply undervalued” Japanese equities more attractive, according to Tokyo-based Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Asset Management (SNAM).
Seven years of equity rises, have we really seen any evidence of complacency that ended previous bull markets?
Momentum investors will tell you that a good indication of the bottom of a particular market is the point at which bad news stops moving share prices downwards.
As the Federal Open Market Committee settles into another two day meeting, investors would be right to have low expectations on the level of clarity they will get as a result.
On a fairly gloomy day on markets, the FTSE 350 general retail sector was up around 0.5% on Monday. A clear indication that many within the market are of the view that the sector has little to fear from the announcement that BHS has filed for administration.
Property used to be an alternative investment, a diversifier to equities, bonds and cash but as external influences push investor sentiment further south, it is struggling to even be this.
It has been the question probably most frequently asked by investors over the past few years: should I increase my allocation to emerging markets now? Often the answer has been negative as short-lived rallies have failed to sustain themselves. Will this time be any different?
