Another change in my output!
Spring must be getting to your scribe – having changed the format of the monthly briefing, I now propose to change this regular blog slot to a new time.
It will become Midweek Musings, with posts most likely on Wednesday but not necesarily. In some weeks there will be more than one post.
The first new post will be this week.
A quick take on stock markets
One reason for the change is that I often want to comment on the state of stock markets and if I am writing early Monday, the news I have is from the week before, which occasionally is not ideal.
Last week saw a continuation of the pattern I identified in the Watching Brief . The markets are pricing assets on the basis of an inflationary economic recovery with rising central bank interest rates. This is because US bond yields are suggesting that is what is coming. That proposition does not fit in with all sorts of other facts, so possibly this will be a mini-tantrum.
If it is not, there will surely be more losses for fixed income investors and the price of gold may well head further down, although the latter would be an appropriate asset to own if there is runaway inflation. Equities will however turn around once a recovery is seen to be feeding through to profits.
It seems to me that there is nothing to lose by keeping calm and holding on to equities. I doubt if many of my readers own a heavy portfolio weighting in bonds (although be aware that if you own multi-asset funds, you will own more bonds in more cautious portfolios and they may not actually be lower risk at the moment).
Gold I have already commented on very recently and I think what an investor does with a physical gold holding will depend on whether it is a short term tactical holding (in which case it was a mistake with hindsight) or a long term asset mix diversifier.
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