Economics

UK National Wealth Fund: A politically created player in Achieving Net-Zero Targets

This article reflects the opinions of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Investors are expected to supercharge the UK NWF, but will we? The UK’s National Wealth Fund (NWF) is a Labour government initiative aimed at strategically managing public assets to accelerate green investment and facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. With a government commitment of £7.31 billion, the NWF seeks to catalyse private investment in critical green sectors, fostering job creation and sustainable economic growth across the nation. The ...

What really drove August’s market sell-off?

In the first week of August, global stock markets sold off sharply - but what was driving that correction? Ram Sachdev highlights the pivotal role played by the ‘yen carry trade’ The recent market correction (defined as a decline of more than 10%) has raised questions among investors as to what underpinned the sell-off. One key factor was the role played by the yen carry trade at that time.  What is a carry trade?   A carry trade is a financial strategy in which an ...

The New Realities and Private Healthcare

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The editorial in this week’s Investors' Chronicle was full of doom and gloom. Under the headline “Facing up to new realities” the editor said “The threats identified by the WEF (World Economic Forum at Davos) include climate change, the cost of living crisis, geopolitical confrontation, high debt levels, recession, low growth, social unrest and cyber crime. These crises are converging, it says, to shape a ...

The Outlook for Stock Markets and Bank Runs

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Market Outlook It’s that time of year when financial commentators like to pontificate on the future for the stock market in the coming year and tip sheets give their hot share tips for the New Year. As regards economic forecasts and how the stock market will perform I can do no better than quote John Littlewood in his book “The Stock Market”: “The sequence of bull and bear ...

Review of the Year – But It Could Have Been Worse

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Not many stock market investors will have come out ahead this year. At the time of writing, the FTSE-250 is down 17.5% over the past year, the FTSE-AIM index is down 30% and the FTSE-100 scraped in a small rise of 1.8%. The last one was driven by rises in commodity prices which benefited oil/gas companies and big miners which dominate the index. With war in ...

Market Trends, WeWork, Cryptocurrencies, Passive Saturation

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Note that it was written on 14th November, before the Chancellor's autumn statement. Last week was a remarkable one for my stock market portfolio. Share prices were up on almost all my holdings. This was no doubt sparked by good news; inflation seems to be under control in the USA with CPI falling to 7.7% and the war in Ukraine is looking up as Russia ...

Pension Fund Hedging and the Bond Market

The Bank of England had to step into purchase gilts yesterday (28th September) after the bond market looked like collapsing totally. Some £65 billion was spent to do it. This has created panic and uncertainty in the financial community and even affected equity markets. I will give my comments on these events although I certainly do not claim to have any knowledge of pension scheme management and bond markets. So please correct me if I get it wrong. Defined benefit pension schemes buy ...

Interest Rate Sanity and Chancellor’s Announcements

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The Bank of England’s announcement of an increase in base rate to 2.25% was just one step in a return to sanity. With inflation nearing 10% why would any idiot lend money at 5% or less as many mortgage providers have been doing. In reality the last few years have seen lower interest rates than have been available for the last 5,000 years. This has been ...

Asset Allocation

This is the personal view of Cliff Weight and does not represent the views of ShareSoc. Cliff Weight is not authorised to give financial advice and nothing in this  article should be interpreted as advice. The 13 year Quantitative Easing* experiment has finished. Between March 2009 and June 2022, the Bank of England bought 57% of the £1.5trillion of gilts sold, according to the FT see https://on.ft.com/3xcx6mL I feel more comfortable. The laws of economics I was taught at university in the 1970’s ...