October Commentary

At present, financial markets are dominated by the strong economic growth being achieved by the USA. This in turn has fuelled a gradual, and very likely ongoing, series of increases in US interest rates and, as a consequence, the Dollar has strengthened. While investors take heart from growth in the globe’s leading economy, this is not generally being matched elsewhere and a degree of imbalance has therefore resulted.

In our view, this begins to create interesting anomalies for equity investors as while potential for further growth may now be priced into US markets, opportunities are arising elsewhere, in Europe, Japan and the Far East generally and in better placed emerging markets.

In the UK, the unsatisfactory state of Brexit negotiations continues to give rise for concern and while we do not expect any major changes in the budget due at the end of this month, it will be interesting to get a better understanding of the Chancellor’s approach to dealing with the additional uncertainties that appear likely to face the Treasury next year. In the meanwhile, interest rates in the UK look set to remain stable for the immediate future, again subject to Brexit’s impact on the exchange rate and on inflation: in our view, the balance of risk in the fixed interest sector is on the downside.

As part of our ongoing service to our clients, we need to ensure that the funds that you are invested in are always in the most competitively charged share class. If, when reviewing your portfolio, this is not the case, we will automatically switch the fund into the most appropriate share class for you. Any such changes will not incur any additional charges as the new fund will be exactly the same as the existing fund, just a different share class at a lower cost.