Perspectives
November 2020 Spending Review
November, 2020
It’s a old political saw but when Harold Macmillan responded, ”Events, dear boy, events” to a question regarding what he feared most in politics and although he actually said the “opposition of events,” it could hardly ring more true than of the Covid crisis today. Covid has thrown the economy entirely off course and rewritten, […]
A Dressing Down
November, 2020
In Ancient Greece, people that defaulted on their debts were forced to sit in the marketplace with a basket placed over their heads. In 17th century Scotland, defaulters were required to wear a half yellow and half brown coat and cap in public. In France, they were ordered to wear a green bonnet. While these […]
The Value of Gold
November, 2020
The Stabiliser component of Tacit portfolios is very specifically designed to mitigate risks, both economic and market related, which may from time to time lead to a sharp correction in equity markets. Its components are primarily cash, G7 government bonds (both conventional and index linked) and Gold Bullion. These holdings are not held to provide […]
Squaring the Political Circle
November, 2020
With all eyes focussed on the US election this week it is vital for investors to understand the implications, short, medium, and long term, of the results of the Presidential race. No formal winner has yet been announced but whichever candidate wins, it will be by slim margins in several key states. This will not […]
Debt Doldrums
October, 2020
Every financial crisis is marked by the failure of supposedly infallible corporate behemoths. In 2001, it was Enron. In 2008, there were several – Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. On this side of the pond, it was the collapse of HBOS. Every bull market has its poster child of corporate excess, […]
Sustainable Investing
October, 2020
Environmental factors have become more and more important to investors as the science has highlighted the impact of their (our) actions today on future generations. At Tacit, we spend a lot of time considering the implications of changes in peoples’ behaviour on asset prices. Ultimately, demand and supply dictate prices and any change to either […]
Growth Opportunities
October, 2020
We recently wrote about the role of the Growth portion of our Stabiliser and Growth asset mix. The Growth component of the portfolio is ultimately responsible for, as the name implies, generating growth. It is mainly comprised of equities. A good framework for evaluating the future growth opportunities of a company or an industry is […]
Keeping Track of Brexit
October, 2020
Many years ago, C Northcote Parkinson examined company decision making in his still delightfully relevant book “Parkinson’s Law.” In the book he described how a company board could spend hours debating the merits of a proposal to give the employees a new coffee machine but could sign off on a new nuclear power plant in […]
Income Trap
October, 2020
Yields from government and corporate bonds continue their precipitous decent and major central banks implement negative interest rate policies, pushing interest on bank deposits further down. Even dividends, as this year has shown, can be fickle. The question of how one can safely generate an income stream from an investment portfolio without taking on excessive […]
Growth Always Comes with a Risk
September, 2020
We write a lot about risk. Risk means different things to different people: for example, to an architect the risk may be that a building is not pleasing to the eye once built, to a President the risk could be not getting re-elected, whilst for an investor risk could be missing out on market rises […]