I have lost count of the number of fund managers who have told me over the last decade they don't pay attention to governments. In a globalised economy, political grandstanding just doesn't matter, was their view. Well, it matters now.
Scroll through my inbox and you'll find more emails devoted to Brexit, Trump, trade and a Corbyn government than you will on earnings forecasts. Politics has made a rather rude re-entry into the world of investing. So Brexit and Corbyn are sinking the UK stockmarket; fear of regulation is killing equities in the tech sector; and fear of tariffs ripping up supply chains is doing for everything else.
From their peak in September the FAANGs have lost $1trn of market cap. Nasty. Elsewhere the Shanghai Composite is down 30% from its peak; Italy is off 25% and the Dax has tumbled by more than 20%. Deutsche Bank says that 90% of the 70 asset classes it tracks were in the red by mid-November. The previous high? Eighty-four percent in 1920.
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It's also worth mentioning that in the UK, buy-to-let property is also on its way out. Since the stamp-duty changes and cuts to mortgage interest relief, the number of landlords is down 120,000. This makes sense: if you can't rely on making serious capital gains any more (and you can't), the sums just don't add up.
You'll be tearing your hair out by now. What can you do? In the past the correct answer (not always the one we have given) has been to buy on the dips religiously. This year that has not been a good strategy. For it to become one again you have to believe two things.
First, that there is a global downturn on the way; second, that central banks will react to it with another burst of market-boosting stimulus (see Charles Bean's remarks in this issue of the magazine). The former is probably a given. The latter is not: central bankers could come over all responsible and stick with their "normalisation" attempts.
The only thing equity investors can do is to look for value. After all, the price at which you buy something is the only real determinant of your long-term return from it. So look at UK equities (lots of value) and consider Latin America. Use fund managers that have some focus on value, such as Schroders, Kennox, Merian and Oldfield Partners.
Finally, if you want to talk about all this more, go to Ebay and you can bid to have lunch with me (the money raised goes to UK charity Habitat for Humanity). This year I will be joined by Claer Barrett, personal finance editor of the Financial Times. We won't be able to bring back the great quantitative easing-driven "everything-bubble" of the last decade or roll back buy-to-let legislation for you. But we can have a stab at answering most of your questions about what will happen to your money next.
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RBS to close a fifth of branchesRoyal Bank of Scotland plans to shut 18 branches across Scotland, resulting in the loss of 105 jobs. We have the full list of closures.
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Beat the cost of living crisis – go on holidayEditor's letter As inflation rages, energy bills soar and the pound tanks, what’s a good way to save money this winter? Go on holiday, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
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How capitalism has been undermined by poor governanceEditor's letter Capitalism’s “ruthless efficiency” has been undermined by poor governance, a lack of competition and central banks’ over-enthusiastic money printing, says Andrew Van Sickle.
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Don't be scared by economic forecastingEditor's letter The Bank of England warned last week the UK will tip into recession this year. But predictions about stockmarkets, earnings or macroeconomic trends can be safely ignored, says Andrew Van Sickle.
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The biggest change in the last 17 years – the death of the “Greenspan put”Editor's letter Since I joined MoneyWeek 17 years ago, says John Stepek, we’ve seen a global financial crisis, a eurozone sovereign debt crisis , several Chinese growth scares, a global pandemic, and a land war in Europe. But the biggest change is the death of the “Greenspan put”.
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The wolf returns to the eurozone’s doorEditor's letter The eurozone’s intrinsic flaws have been exposed again as investors’ fears about Italy’s ability to pay its debt sends bond yields soaring.
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Things won't just return to normal – that's not how inflation worksEditor's letter You might think that, if inflation is indeed “transitory”, we just need to wait and everything will return to “normal”. But this is a grave misunderstanding of how inflation works, says John Stepek.
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Car hire and the strangeness of the post-pandemic economyEditor's letter A global shortage of hire cars and unusually high hotel occupancy rates sum up the post-pandemic global economy in a nutshell, says Merryn Somerset Webb, with enhanced demand meeting restricted supply.
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Why we need to get a grip on our governmentEditor's letter Our government is trying to do too much, enacting policies that are destructive to the private sector. It needs to drop the the feel-good nonsense and create policies that lead to long-term wealth, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
