Announcements

I love that relatively new expression ’empty chaired’ to reflect the media event where someone decides not to turn up (chickens out?) and their place is shown empty.

Now I am not chickening out of offering a point of view this week but as it the start of the month, I am working on the rather more detailed ‘Working Brief’ which is for subscribers only. I think the people who pay to keep this service deserve an advantage, so the free to all Monday commentary will always be missed on the first week of the month.

You can access all the detailed and expert content on the web for as short or long a period as you like for GBP20 a month. Just go to the Member tab to order a free trial.

I have made some slight changes to the site presentation, now that there is a reasonable number of regular users. Some of the permanent pages have been relegated to menu items and the latest blog takes centre stage with more recent ones listed below.

I myself have thought it slightly odd that we don’t have a ‘home’ tab, but is is actually there – you just have to click on my iconic head!

This is a new idea, with me posting snippets of news that I have picked up in my skimming, or even deep reading of the vast amount if financial information I see every week. The selection is based on what I think might be useful to my subscribers but access will not be restricted.

I don’t promise to write every Monday, or even to always publish on Monday! But this will be a regular feature.

Premier and Miton to Merge

These are 2 medium sized investment houses, both of which have already absorbed smaller boutique investments houses in the past. Both have allowed individual managers to run funds with unusual specialisms (eg Premier Defensive). Miton have been using external Authorised Corporate Directors (which is why there have been varying initials in front of their name) so one would imagine there will be some economies of scale.

Fund manager mergers almost always see someone or some people’s noses put out of joint and some job losses as similar funds are merged, so if you own a Premier or Miton fund, you need to see if there are any changes later. Overall, I would personally see the merger as positive, creating a more effective market player.

An index for Trump!

I have written about the way President Trump’s tweets make global stock markets move and even said, slightly tongue in cheek, that one could develop a trading pattern to make money on the resulting short term volatility. Now JP Morgan are devising a specific volatility index (Volfefe) to measure this effect, presumably so an exchange traded product can be constructed to invest in the potential!

Brexit and markets

There has been a clear assessment in both currency and equity markets that a no deal Brexit (NDB) is less likely following the rather fractious political events of the last few days. Of course, this is just a short term change in sentiment. Improved UK growth figures just published should not be seen as telling us anything, given that another burst of stock building was likely as the October 31st deadline sunk in.

It pays to remember that no Brexit at all is highly unlikely (sorry Remainers, I am one of you), so even if a deal is done the UK and European economies will be subject to not altogether predictable stresses.

Anti-Trust

No, not more about Trump or Brexit, but about the US legislation, developed to control the appalling monopolistic practices of the US corporate rogues in the oil industry originally and later applied to the Bell telephone business and in my time at college, IBM.

I have said before that it was fortunate for the huge tech companies, some of which are clearly monopolistic and adopting unfair trading practices to eliminate competitors, that under President Trump the public protection agencies of the US government were getting their teeth gradually knocked out! The tech barons may have seen control of the media as giving them a better chance of keeping public opinion on their side, but as we know, dear Donald is best mates with an old fashioned media mogul and propaganda pirate, Rupert Murdoch. So he actually dislikes the media organisations owned by the tech outfits.

Perhaps it is not surprising to now read that the anti-trust machinery is being wound up to have a go at the likes of Facebook and Alphabet (Google). This will in time impact on their share prices and given that big corporate break up sometimes release large amounts of extra value, the outcome could actually be positive. Innovation and tech fund managers will be paying close attention, we hope.