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.
“Advice firm Almond Financial moves to four-day working week”
The Four Day Week was much discussed and trailed post-COVID, when remote-working looked likely to end strap-hanging commutes for good and laptops on the kitchen table were to become the ’new norm’.