Knowledge and insight

We don’t know about you, but over the past year or so we got into the habit of buying our travel money extremely far in advance of holidays.

Soon after the referendum result of 2016 – when sterling fell like an elephant with a ball and chain on its leg – there was a period when you held off because you thought the exchange rate could possibly, maybe, should be, better next week. That time of timid hope bled away when the pound slipped below €1.15 and camped out for more than a year.

Productivity growth is falling around the world, but the slowdown is more acute in the UK. This deceleration could be lessened – and even reversed – by investment in research and development (R&D), which kickstarts new technologies and, ultimately, increases growth and productivity. However, the UK’s spending in this area is falling behind other developed economies at a time when we need to be leading the way.

As we move into the new financial year we begin to access the outlook for global markets as we look out to 2020 and beyond. How can investor’s best position themselves amid changing central bank policies and geopolitical risks?  David Coombs, Head of multi-asset investments at Rathbones discusses.

US corporate earnings hit a crescendo this week, yet most people are focused on the Federal Reserve and the fluid trade policies of the American President.

The yield curve is all the rage in the financial press, with more people searching for it on Google than at any time since 2005, which was the last time it inverted. But what is the yield curve? What does it mean for it to invert? And why should we care?

Foreign companies and governments are simply not investing in British assets as they used to. This is worrying because modern economic growth relies on technological transfer, or learning from others and improving on it. The benefits of this transfer are clear from the productivity data - firms with inward investment from overseas are almost twice as productive as firms without any link to foreign investment. So, a slowdown in this area means a slowdown in productivity; a big worry.

Quite possibly the worst bounty delivered by the 21st century is the 24-hour news cycle.

Investors seem to be flitting between fear and optimism in an increasingly erratic manner. Hopes for a soft-touch Federal Reserve seem to be driving most of the optimism, notes chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth.

It’s hard to see anything beyond Brexit in the UK’s future, but UK Opportunities fund manager Alexandra Jackson has been noting a real resurgence in the fortunes of British households. If only they felt confident enough to start spending.