St. James’s Place Week Watch 30th September 2024

In this week’s WeekWatch, the SJP Team tackles the Stock Take, Wealth Check and In the Picture. In particular, the SJP team focuses on the Chinese, US, EU, and UK economic updates and more. We’ve taken the time to put together the takeaways from the update.

Stock Take

China

• Since it was opened up and reformed in the late 1970s, China’s economy has grown at an average rate of 9% annually.

• China risks missing its annual growth target of around 5%. Therefore, markets reacted enthusiastically to the People’s Bank of China unveiling a major package of aggressive measures designed to stimulate the economy.

  • Plans to cut the amount of cash banks must hold in reserve are estimated to free up around one trillion yuan ($142 billion) for new lending.

  • Efforts to boost the property market by cutting borrowing costs for existing mortgages and lowering the minimum down payments on all homes to 15%.

  • Global stocks rose to a record high on Tuesday, while major US indices also hit closing highs as investors cheered the news.

Thank you, David Gardener and St James’s Place Asia and Middle East, for sharing your valuable market insights with our community in the SJP 27th August Week Watch.

This week, SJP will delve into the intricacies of the global financial markets, including the US, UK and Japan, and share practical tips to enhance your wealth management strategies and a perspective on interpreting the media reports and narratives. This week’s blog covers the following points;

Stock Watch

• Jackson Hole Economic Symposium

  • the US Fed will meet to decide on interest rates in September, where markets will be expecting either a 0.25% or a 0.50% cut.

• BoE will feel comfortable making further cuts to the UK Bank Rate, albeit at a measured pace, but cautioned that it is too early to declare victory over inflation.

Thank you, St James’s Place, for sharing your valuable market insights with our community in the SJP 19th August Week Watch. This week, SJP will delve into the intricacies of the global financial markets, share practical tips to enhance your wealth management strategies and present the week's informative graph, which offers crucial data for consideration. This week’s blog covers the following points;

• Potential US recession, recovery and inflation.

• UK GDP growth, inflation and interest rate cuts.

• Japanese Equities.

• Wealth Check: Why do start-ups fail?

• Limited companies: separate your personal and business finances

• Graph of the week: Past performance is not indicative of future performance

We are lucky to have Stanford Brown's Quarterly Investment Markets Report for the second quarter 2024.

The report aims to help investors cut through all the media noise and hype and understand what drives investment markets and portfolio returns.

In the report, Stanford Brown Cheif Financial Officer Nick Ryder tackles some of the most pressing questions for longer-term investors:

• What happened over the quarter

• Performance of major financial markets

• Current investment outlook and portfolio positioning

• Views on major asset classes

• Current portfolios allocations

Thank you, Stanford Brown, for sharing their episode of SB Talks with host CEO Vincent O’Neill, who speaks with Chief Investment Officer Nick Ryder to delve into the latest economic developments shaping global markets.

The pair examine the following;

• The recent pullback in equity markets and the outlook for equities in the future.

• March’s CPI numbers exceed market expectations, prompting speculation about the inflation and monetary policy trajectory.

• They discuss the IMF's upgraded World Economic Outlook, highlighting growth projections and regional disparities, focusing on US and European economies.

• Lastly, they analyse China's Q1 GDP data, examining the role of government investment versus consumer sentiment in driving economic performance.