Many of the reviving rises in stock markets, particularly in the US in the last year or so have been driven by AI. Not those buy-and-sell computerised algorithms we’ve heard so much about for years now; but the share prices of the big tech companies ‘at the heart of the AI revolution’. Whether or not this is a bubble akin to the .com frenzy or, believe it or not, a quarter of a century ago has been previously debated here and elsewhere. I’d say not, as those big tech-ers now do actually make a profit. It may, however, be at the very least overdone. Apple, we hear, has stopped trying to build driverless cars, which were one of the many next-big-things; and the AI that keeps trying to correct my spelling while writing this article is more the a tad annoying. AI will be a gimmick for some time, I’d say, and other things and themes will continue the revival of investments. That’s what Robbie the Robot has just told me to say. Exterminate!
“FCA: ‘We’re not against small firms’”
We’ve always been a small firm, even when we thought we were big, as the official classification is ‘ten advisers or less’. There is a, perhaps justifiable perception that our regulator would prefer to regulate far fewer big firms, rather than the many thousands of smaller adviser companies which are still in the vast majority, with over 88% of the 4,600 odd directly-authorised financial advisers comprising less than 5 advisers.
