Perspectives
Regime Change in Financial Markets – different, but still the same
May, 2022
Those of us of a certain age will remember the time in the 1970s when inflation both in the UK and the US was running at more than 20%. Recent inflation prints; +9% in the UK and +8.3% in the US in the year to April 30 echo those earlier difficult and stagflationary years. The […]
Demographics
May, 2022
Demographics are deemed to be a driver of investment returns. The argument goes that the bigger the proportion of the population that is of a working age, the greater the economic value creation and the lower the drain on the public purse. These working people, then begin to save, providing a marginal buyer to equity […]
Why do all roads lead to the US?
May, 2022
Recency bias is a cognitive bias that tends to place greater emphasis on more recent experiences and memories, even if they are not the most relevant or reliable. For investors this behavioural bias manifests itself all too often and can be challenging to avoid as more recent financial market events cloud judgement. It convinces us […]
History rhymes
April, 2022
Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has raised a multiplicity of complex ethical, political, social, and economic issues which elicit different explanations and responses, depending on the perspective from which you begin. We in the UK are largely influenced by what might be termed a ‘developed world’ perspective, which might crudely be characterised as democratic, broadly liberal, […]
What goes down must go up, right?
April, 2022
Clients of Tacit will recognise the term ‘moat’ in the context of the investments we hold in our strategies. Moat is a term that Warren Buffett uses to illustrate the competitive advantage of a company. Its definition in the dictionary is that it is “a deep, wide ditch surrounding a castle, fort, or town, typically […]
The Impact of Deglobalisation?
April, 2022
When Henry Kissinger asked Zhou Enlai about the significance of the French Revolution, Enlai reputedly replied, “It’s too early to tell.” In 1972, the year of Richard Nixon’s meeting with Zhou the size of the Chinese economy was $113bn (IMF, PPP) and the country was a backwater. Today, similar estimates put the size of the […]
US Economic Leadership: Not changing any time soon
March, 2022
The tragic events unfolding in the Ukraine highlight the geo-political risks that investors must factor into their planning and poses once again the question of where is it safe to invest. In moments of crisis, funds frequently flow to the US, and we see no reason why this time should be any different. The US […]
Money illusion
March, 2022
Standard economics assumes that rational people base their decisions on real value only and take changes in price tags properly into account. For example, rational consumers are assumed to base their shopping decisions on “real” prices (e.g., how many hours do I have to work for a loaf of bread?) and would not change their […]
Ukraine, Energy & Inflation
March, 2022
It is a truism that the Russian economy is dependent upon energy exports, principally oil, for its balance of payments. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) Russia accounts for 5 million barrels a day on world export markets some 12% of total demand. That export success is not matched by an equal desire for […]
Sanctions in a digital world
March, 2022
For the past two weeks we have read daily reports of new financial sanctions that have been imposed on the Russian state, Russian companies and Russian individuals by countries in the West. It may surprise you to know that more than half of Russia’s central bank reserves are actually not covered by any sanctions as […]