Surprisingly for us, one of the most popular blogs last year was the one which had a heavy emphasis on the risk of cyber war. The issue of cyber security has moved more into the headlines in recent days as the UK backs the Chinese firm Huawei to build vital infrastructure – against the protestations of the US. We explore that here. It is an important issue as we consider investment issues in China, take the temperature of global tension, and look to how Britain will position itself in a post-Brexit world.
It has been a crazy year, but certainly not catastrophic. Reflecting on 2018 I couldn’t move beyond the idea of “peaks”. It’s always dangerous to call even one peak – the scope for egg on your face in a year’s time is very high! Nevertheless…
Trade wars. “No deal” Brexit. More Russian sanctions. Italexit. Interest rates up. Turkey in turmoil – more important than you might think, with European banks very exposed.
You would be forgiven for thinking we’re all in trouble – we will be one day, but not just yet – or not today!
It has been a fascinating week across a range of largely political rather than investment issues. But the political back-drop continues to cast a big light on the investment outlook. Here’s a ramble around the last week with the help of some talented writers and thinkers. I do hope you enjoy it.
In March our headline was “Trump, Italy, and Putin raise temperature”. Plus ça change.
Donald Trump raises most people’s temperature most days. In recent 6 monthly client reports we highlighted the growing risk of cyber wars emanating from Russia (or Iran). And Italy is back in the headlines too – more on that in a moment.
In our commentary at the end of January (Opportunity Knocks or Apocalypse Postponed?) we set out a blueprint for markets in the 12-24 months ahead.
The December blog was a tad gloomy, “Investing in The Age Of Radical Uncertainty”. To cheer you up before the close of January here is a blueprint for the (still to come) craziest bull market ever. Put together by a grey cautious optimist (me), aided and abetted by two even older analysts (the famous Grantham and Prechter), who are typically more cautious than optimistic.
In so many ways we appear to be living through history. It is the impact on the markets which concerns us, where behaviour in many markets is measurably and visibly extreme, from the US stock market to bitcoin, with many bonds around the world still having negative or zero interest rates, and guaranteeing that you lose money.
Today is the 30th anniversary of The Great Storm in 1987 – the famous one that the BBC weatherman (Michael Fish) denied would happen.
Sadly there were 13 deaths in the south east of England.
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