Great Expectations

A review of 2014 and outlook for 2015.

“Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

Q€

If size matters then Mario Draghi may just about have delivered. The €1.1 trillion quantitative easing programme announced on 22nd January is bigger than markets had hoped for given the opposition he faced from the German Bundesbank and a large number of the German and Dutch hawks on the Governing Council.

A Russian Winter

As a Russian winter bites a new cold war begins. With the crisis in Ukraine potentially tipping back into open warfare and the EU looking to escalate sanctions this is a short piece on the Russian economy and its population’s ability to withstand the current sanctions and austerity measures to live in Mr Putin’s newly coine...

FTSE playing footsie with its 1999 record

Break Up, break out or break down? It’s December 30th 1999, the FTSE 100 has just closed at a record high of 6,950.60. At the time the world was full of promise as it entered a new millennium only for everything to be turned on its head as we suffered the 2000 Dot-com crash.

Japan – Rise and shine!

Over the years, one has learned to be a little wary of putting out bullish investment notes on Japan.

The financial writing landscape is littered with the graves of bull notes written by those who thought this time was different.

Real estate’s safe house for ‘bond refugees’

Cast your mind back to the 2008 crisis. It seemed, the only thing outpacing the unsecured mortgages being underwritten was the speed at which they were being re packaged and issued back to Wall Street.

It's the final countdown

Democracy is the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others” – Winston Churchill.

Winner Takes It All

So who saw that coming? Well, hats off to the “well groomed” Glaswegian pensioner,

Stick to your principles

“We have to fight for principles. We could maybe set them aside in the short term. But in the medium and long term, we will suffer damage that way.” Angela Merkel, 29th June 2015.

Keep your eyes on the road

It would appear that the Greek authorities have blinked first and come up with a proposal that will allow the EU to throw in the towel whilst still keeping some degree of self-respect.

Review of the Second Quarter 2015

The second quarter of the year was a stark contrast to the first, with both global economic and geo-political events souring investor sentiments, leading to some increased volatility and overall decline in financial markets.

Japan – It has to be different this time

An unprecedented policy initiative demands a new investment approach. We have written up the bull case for Japan repeatedly in recent years and been invested in Japanese equities for most of that time. 

Chinese devaluation - why now?

Last Tuesday, The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) shook global markets from their relative slumber with a sudden and unexpected devaluation of the Chinese Yuan.

Do not feed the 'bears'!

Markets appear to some to have hit a brick wall with the devaluation of the Chinese currency and collapse of its over inflated stock market just the latest reason touted by market 'bears' to stay cautious

Amidst the turmoil TAM looks for investment opportunity

Financial markets often decouple from the underlying economic fundamentals that drive them.

We believe we are in the midst of one such period. Whilst it can be a worrying time living through such a period it can ultimately be a very rewarding one for patient investors.

Wait for it...

I've got a message for your friend Jim Cramer. The Fed cannot permanently raise stock prices.

The idea that the Fed is going one way or the other, and this is what's driving the stock market, is not true

UK - Getting Serious

From a fund management perspective there wasn't a whole lot to get excited about in Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement although an increase in the economic growth forecast, from 2.3% to 2.4% was welcome.

TAM Performance Update - Moving on up!

“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises” - Mae West 

Ask most clients what they think of the show so far and they’ll probably guess, what with all the volatility they keep reading about, that they’ve probably lost money this year.  Perhaps this is understandable sentime...

Dawn of the Fed

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it” Yogi Berra – Player / Manager, New York Yankees 

Best Private Wealth Management Company - TAM International

TAM Asset Management International win Best Private Wealth Management Company.

In November, we were delighted to tell you that TAM Asset Management were named winners of the 2015 Wealth and Finance International 'Award for Innovation in Portfolio Management - UK'. Today, we are thrilled and humbled to inform you ...