Asset Allocation Pulse

What are we talking about? It’s pretty clear that global supply chains have been under pressure over the past eighteen months. If you live in the UK, you might have experienced “electric car smugness” (either you didn’t have to queue for petrol, or you had to listen to someone else who didn’t have to queue […]

What are we talking about? We’ve seen a few indicators recently that show weaker economic growth. Equities, however, remain pretty resilient. How should we think about this? Can you relate economic growth and equity returns? This topic is worth a longer discussion. As you’d guess, the evidence is mixed. There’s some literature that shows very […]

What are we talking about? UK rates are set to rise soon – probably this year. The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, took to the weekend press to tell everyone that the Bank “will have to act” against inflation. It’s the latest in a series of remarks about inflation that we’ve heard […]

What are we talking about? We’ve seen a few articles recently on the topic of home-country bias – meaning that investors in a particular market typically have more invested in their own market than in global equities. This has been particularly relevant for the UK, where UK equities have struggled in recent years compared to […]

What are we talking about? Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen continued focus on both climate change, ahead of COP-26 and rising energy prices. The price of oil is now above $80 per barrel. That’s a sharp recovery from the lows of 2020, but some way below the peaks of the past decade (as […]

What are we talking about? There’s a lot of discussion among financial analysts about inflation. Quite often the question is – will it be transitory, as Central Banks have generally argued, or rather more sticky? The answer can have important implications for the price of financial assets. Does it Matter? We’d argue that what really […]

What are we talking about? This week saw the end of the furlough scheme in the UK, at least for now. The scheme provided critical support for businesses and employees during the pandemic. The estimated cost, so far, to the Treasury is in the region of £70 billion. The latest data indicated that there were […]

What are we talking about? China Evergrande – a large and very indebted Chinese property company – has been causing worries in financial markets, with concerns that the business could collapse. The consensus view seems to be that the Chinese government is keen to teach property developers a lesson about excessive leverage but won’t permit […]

Fed Chair Powell and his colleagues on the Fed Open Markets Committee continued their successful balancing act yesterday. The FOMC statement delivered no change to the headline numbers – rates stayed unchanged, as expected – and little shift in the commentary. The Fed continues to lead the market towards slowing its bond purchases towards the […]

Hi, We’re very pleased to introduce a new section on the Moneyfarm blog, dedicated to the Asset Allocation Team. On the Asset Allocation Team, as part of our activity of structuring and managing portfolios, we produce a lot of research and internal commentary, sometimes on specific events or data releases and sometimes on industry topics. […]