A leading fund manager told us in a presentation this week that only 4% of their global portfolios are currently invested in the UK. The technical term is ‘underweight in UK equities’ and 4% is positively anorexic. Of our other, main recommended portfolios, one has 11%, the others around 25%, more the norm (as opposed to the ‘new norm’, of which I’m sick of hearing!) Why the differences? As I write, our stockmarket is still some 15% below where it was in January, while the US is just 5% down, despite Trump’s appalling handling of the pandemic. So one view is that the UK offers ‘good value’ and could come back strongly; the other that Brexit approacheth with the government’s eye firmly off the ball. Both could be right.
“A ‘no-deal’ Brexit will be devastating”
I quoted Overheard Bloke in the Gym Changing Room not long after the referendum: ‘We should say ‘You’ve had your last cheque, Merkel’, close the borders, job done!’ If we’d followed his sage advice rather than fannying around for four years, we’d have been through the...
