Market Insight 2019

As we approach the festive season, and the end of what has been an action-packed year for investors, TAM’s Ethical portfolios have risen above the ranks to deliver some of the strongest returns over their long-term tenure on both an absolute basis and even relative to our ‘mainstream’ portfolios.

Whilst the markets continue to show clients positive gains, for some investors a very good year for investment returns could have been a very bad year for liquidity.

It’s been somewhat of a melancholy end to the third quarter for active managers. Two pieces of news have surfaced which serve to take the shine off the benefits of active management.

Through the Lens is back again with the first instalment for 2019 and in the spotlight are our UK CEO, Lester Petch, and Senior Investment Manager, James Penny. Lester and James provide us with an overview of how markets fared in the first six months of 2019, an insight into how our portfolios performed and how we were positioned. James highlights some of our clients' concerns and what we are doing to mitigate those, and Lester lets us in on some exciting corporate developments, and what the next six months has in store for TAM.

Over the last year financial markets have taken investors on a rollercoaster ride with markets rising, then tumbling, before recovering to reach all-time highs once again. Through all this, one of the only asset classes that has steadily risen to cut through the volatility is gold. We are pleased to say we joined this trade early, investing through gold-related equities as well as directly via an Exchange-Traded Commodity (ETC) product. And while many asset classes have made a lot of money this year, gold has undoubtedly come to life in recent months and has certainly contributed to TAM’s performance over...

“FOMO” or the “Fear Of Missing Out”, might be a phrase you’ve heard bandied about the homestead by your millennial teenagers as they head off to university and is formally defined as, “a feeling of anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere”.

Can we offer some words of caution; never put all your eggs in one basket! I am sure you were as surprised and disappointed as I to read on Monday about the suspension of the LF Woodford Equity Income fund. The Fund managed by Neil Woodford (of Invesco Perpetual Income Fund fame) had, due to several reasons including concerns over recent performance, witnessed heightened investor redemptions of late. Assets under management had fallen from a peak of over ten billion pounds two years ago to less than four billion, with outflows reaching a crescendo and resulting yesterday in underlying liquidity...

Think back to the turn of the millennium, what were you doing? More than likely cracking open the bubbles to see in the dawn of a new era, perhaps some of us were fretting over the infamous Y2K computer meltdown heralded at the stroke of midnight!

2018 will hardly be remembered as a vintage year for global markets, in fact, it will likely be lamented with a grimace as the year that broke the back of the 10-year bull run and a year when investors were reminded, uncomfortably, that markets go down, as well as up.