‘I’m sad for my country, but not my portfolio’, commented one US fund manager and political pundit. And that, to a greater or lesser extent depending on your position in the US food chain, is how a majority of Americans voted. The greater or lesser extent being whether you believed he might get you a pay rise or a job, or rocket the price of your Tesla shares still higher to increase your billionaire-dom. Whether the big jump in US stockmarkets was based on the idea that President Elect (as it seems we have to call him, listen to any news bulletin) will be good for business or, my theory, relief that, for now, civil war has been averted. Well, who knows, but markets generally hate uncertainty, and, one way or another, we have certainty, at least about who will be president. What’s good for shares was not so good for bonds, loans to the US government, where it’s been assumed that interest rates may have to go up again; even though he’s promised to ‘end inflation’. In the words of cover of ‘The Economist’: ‘What could possibly go wrong?’
“Cash ISA allowance could be cut this month”
Our mantra has long been ’straightforward advice that you can understand’. That can mean trying to simplify the many complex products and options with which the world of finance tries to befuddle its target audience.
