BoE guides for year-end rate hike – Bluff or real?
This week’s cartoon depicts aptly how roughly half of the UK’s economists and market commentators chose to interpret the Bank of England’s (BoE) formal warning that there may well be a rate hike before the end of this year. Not at the end of 2018 as the markets had up to now priced in, on the back of the weakening economic environment due to the Brexit uncertainties.
£-Sterling rises strongly – why now?
At the start of September, we suggested that £-Sterling might be oversold. At the time of writing on Friday, sterling has appreciated by over 6% against the US dollar from that point. Relative to 4 the euro it’s up over 5% and, against the yen, up over 7%. It would be nice if all our forecasts were as timely and accurate.
Trump turns pragmatic and finally gets things passed
In recent weeks, we have seen President Trump make some unusual moves for a Republican. Particularly given his uniquely incendiary approach to partisan politics. Not only this but we have seen him (admittedly not for the first time), directly contradict senior Republicans such as Paul Ryan. We wonder if this is a sign of ‘the Donald’ rediscovering his independence or is it just borne of frustration with the lack of progress he has made through his first 8 months in office by relying on the Republican majority?
Investor insight – style based investing
Factor based investment has been around for decades, but has in recent years gained considerably more attention with new application terms such as ‘smart beta’ and ‘alternative risk premia’ appearing more regularly in the mainstream financial press.
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