Articles

It was Robert Louis Stevenson (among others) who noted it was better to travel than arrive. Having flown with Ryanair, I would beg to differ. However, the disappointments of budget airline travel, t...

On numerous occasions we have referred to how the precarious state of the global economy is, in no small part, the result of ‘experts’ having a...

It is comforting to know that high street financial institutions just want to hold our hands and guide us through life’s trials and tribulations....

Well, there has been plenty going on. The country overwhelmingly rejected a change to the voting system, U.S. government debt was earmarked for a p...

It is all too easy to assume that individuals in positions of power know what they are doing. I recently saw an anonymous quote which opined that ...

It has been a miserable few weeks. Education riots, VAT at 20%, while to cap it all, Russia snaffled the World Cup. While we fielded Beckham, Camer...

When I was a boy, QE2 was the acronym used to describe a ship owned by Cunard. Now, it’s the next chapter of U.S. monetary policy. The QE2...

In Oscar Wilde’s ‘The importance of being earnest’, Lady Bracknell tells us “… to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune;...

It is a persistent problem. In the middle of the night, you are rudely awakened by a knock at your hotel door. Is the building on fire? Has...

There are well over half a million words in the English language. You might have thought that with all that choice, it wouldn’t be too dif...

Wise words from Bob Dylan. While I’m hardly an expert on 1960s counterculture, he meant (I think) that the answers are often there but, y...

It has often been said of economics that while the questions remain the same, it is only the answers that change. The obscure Victorian economist, ...

In Hotel California, the Eagles tell us “we are all just prisoners here of our own device ……. you can check out any time you like but you can n...

Things aren’t always what they seem. A thought no doubt not lost on Accenture and Gillette. Both firms had promoted themselves on the back of Tig...

Throughout history, gold has held an unshakable hold over the human psyche. From Midas to the Spanish Main, from Cecil Rhodes to... er, Spandau Ba...

It's our view that the world economy is still concealing plenty of unexploded ordnance. Whether it detonates is another matter but every now...

Mark Twain said "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Clearly, it's not a problem we ha...

Britain has, at least in a technical sense, finally emerged from recession. Most industrialised nations have been posting anaemic growth in Gross ...

Markets keep rising but so does unemployment. Governments print money although the vast majority of it leaches into speculative capital market ...

An acquaintance of ours asked us recently why, unlike the majority of investment managers, we weren’t talking the stockmarket up. We explained...

We have always invested a good deal of time ensuring that our clients understand our investment thinking, both in the short and longer terms. Whil...

This year, the Euro celebrated its tenth birthday. It was launched with great fanfare on the 1st January 1999; Rudolf Erlinger, then Chairman of t...

Experts; where would we be without them? A lot better off is our guess. We’re not talking here about real experts like doctors, dentists, ...

Once upon a time, economic prosperity was the result of a high savings ratio combined with sweat and risk taking. Victorian Britain pioneere...