By Annabel Brodie-Smith
The New Year is up and running and so is the market so far this year. The FTSE 100 had quite a rally, with a record breaking 12 day run of highs, at the beginning of January.
Of course no-one knows what will happen next, but the investment company that benefitted most from a change in sentiment last year was BlackRock World Mining. This was the AIC’s best performing member up 101% in 2016 and this month manager Evy Hambro explains why the company performed so well and why he believes the outlook for the mining sector is improving.
The political changes of 2016 are continuing apace with Theresa May’s Brexit strategy speech and Trump’s inauguration this week. Arguably, Brexit and Trump are both symptoms of a general ‘retreat from globalisation’, to quote the title of a new book by Gervais Williams.
Gervais barely needs an introduction, but he’s CEO of Miton Group and manages The Diverse Income Trust and Miton UK Micro Cap. Gervais has kindly summed up some of the book’s insights into an article for us. He thinks investment strategies will change more in the next three years than they have in the last thirty years. It’s thought-provoking stuff.
Finally, it’s the time of the year when most New Year’s resolutions have already fallen by the wayside. David Prosser explains in his article how saving small amounts of money and investing it can be worthwhile. After reading this you might be tempted to give up that daily cup of coffee or one restaurant meal a week.
Even if you’re not prepared to forego such indulgences you might be surprised to know that if you had invested £50 a month in the average investment company over ten years you’d now have nearly £11,000 from the £6,000 invested. But if you’d invested the same £50 a month over 20 years in the average investment company you’d now have over £36,000 from £12,000 invested. Good things certainly come to those who wait!
See you next month.
Annabel Brodie-Smith, Communications Director, AIC