Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 1 2024 (1 January – 31 March 2024) – The Rally Continues
In the first quarter of 2024, equity markets surged upwards, in particular North America, driven on by the ongoing artificial intelligence boom, Japan and Europe, with their respective stock markets returning an impressive 11.4% (S&P 500), 13.4% (Nikkei 225) and 11.3% (Euro Stoxx 50) in GBP. However, the UK equity market with its lack of […]
UK Spring Budget 6 March 2024
Chancellor Hunt announces £10bn National Insurance cut in pre-election Budget In today’s Budget statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt asserted that the UK economy ‘has turned a corner’ against a backdrop of taxes at a post-War record high and pressure on creaking public services. Mr Hunt spoke of UK economic growth of 0.8% in 2024 rising to […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 4 2023 (1 October 2023 – 31 December 2023) and Investment Outlook 2024
Santa Rally 2023 Since a market low point at the end of October, equity markets, particularly in the US rallied strongly in the last two months of 2023. The US S&P500 surged 24% in 2023 and the technology focused NASDAQ jumped 43%. These gains were the largest since 2021 and 2020 respectively. The MSCI World […]
Pension Lifetime Allowance Under a Different Name?
The pension lifetime allowance (LTA) recovery tax charge was reduced to 0% for 2023/24 and is due to be abolished from April 2024. Announced in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, this seemingly simple statement is proving complicated to put into practice. In July, 41 pages of draft legislation were published setting out HMRC’s initial attempt at […]
Climbing the Wall of Worry
A Timeline of Negative World Events and Subsequent Market Responses ‘The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient.’ Warren Buffett From the period beginning February 1988 to the end of 2022, global markets returned 1,598.30% with dividends reinvested, whereas inflation increased consumer spending by only 162.81% over the […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 3 2023 (1 July – 30 September 2023) – ‘Higher for Longer’
Equity Markets August and September are notoriously poor performing months, having been the two worst-performing months for over 50 years. Following suit, the bullish sentiment that pulled stocks out of the fire, that is a bear market, has begun to show signs of slowing down. Evidence of a sell-off across the markets was present during […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 2 2023 (1 April – 30 June 2023) – Developed Market Equities Prosper
Equity Markets Following on from the turmoil within the US banking sector, the stress continued in Q2 as JP Morgan acquired First Republic Bank in May to avoid yet another bank collapse. Despite these concerns, the S&P500 is +5.63% over the quarter which has largely been driven by a narrow band of technology stocks as […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 1 2023 (1 January – 31 March 2023) – Markets Make a Good Start to the Year
Equity Markets Following a particularly weak 2022, global equity markets experienced a positive start to the year, with most major indices posting gains throughout the first quarter. The FTSE 100 reached a new all-time high in January, whilst we witnessed strong rallies particularly in those indices which performed poorly in 2022, such as the ‘Tech-heavy’ […]
Silicon Valley Bank Collapse – Market Impact
Markets have been volatile this week following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the US. SVB lent money to many small technology businesses in the US, as well as their entrepreneurial owners. The US Federal Reserve stepped in quickly to secure customers’ deposits and reassure markets. In the UK, HSBC bought up […]
Budget – March 2023 – Pension and Personal Finance Impact
Pension Changes The Chancellor announced that the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) will effectively be removed from 6 April 2023, so it will mark the end of the possibility of a recovery tax charge for a large pension fund. The LTA tax charge will be set at 0% from 6 April 2023 and the LTA abolished […]