August has been a busy month with geopolitics front and centre. Company reports continued to feed through and overall its been a positive period, with equities touching all time highs but weakness creeping in. Fiscal discipline remains a cause for concern and the UK will likely see further tax changes to plug the 'black hole'.

The quarter ended with market turmoil as “liberation day” approached, with markets continuing their fall into the new quarter. Market gains were wiped out for 2025, and the last twelve months in many cases. Ethical portfolios benefited from the under exposure to the Magnificent Seven shares (such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple etc), in addition to no exposure to the recently hyped defence sector, which enabled a recovery in relative performance at least. We referred to the “Trump bump” as a knee jerk reaction in our last report and this proved to be the case. It began to turn in February and the DeepSeek news further crimped expectations for the overheated AI sector. Simultaneously, the consumer weakened in the US (first noted by the airline industry) leading to a rotation away from US equities.

There has been a lot of noise and volatility in the last few days. The word “Correction” is back, and like last September, it is focused on the renowned Magnificent7 or M7, (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVidia, Tesla) and the Artificial Intelligence sector in particular.

With expectations of fiscal stimulus, US exceptionalism, i.e. the US was the only growth game in town, took hold in 2024. China and India were under pressure, and Europe was dead in the water. The gyrations we have seen in markets over the last few weeks reflect the fact that dynamics have now moved on.

Markets across the globe have been hanging on every word and action of US President Donald Trump since he took office at the end of January. Uncertainty creates volatility, and this is exactly what the President has created in his words and actions. The new administration’s stance towards Ukraine has certainly caused concern and taken many people by surprise. It has created some unity within Europe as they look to stand by Ukraine. There has already been a significant overhaul in attitudes towards spending substantial quantities on re-armament.

This months MPS stock pick is the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) who support economic growth of LatinAmerican and Caribbean countries through financial and technical assistance.

Ethical news covers climate events, London's super sewer, cereal made using hydrogen, and waste to fuel. Our joint winner and loser is the rescued humpback whale found off the coast of Skye.

A narrow rally focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been enough to sustain the equity bull market rally over the last couple of years. However, January saw a threat emerge in the introduction of Chinas DeepSeek’s AI model, in what has been widely described as the ‘Sputnik moment’ in the global AI race (referring to the space race of the 20th century). Despite the wobble created from the AI concerns, equity market returns were positive for the months, with equity returns showing signs of a broadening out as we started the year, although January does have a habit of wrong-footing investors. This months stock pick is Axian Telecom is a leading player in Africa’s digital transformation, tackling the issue of underserved consumers with insufficient digital coverage and accessibility.

A Federal Reserve rate cut buoyed markets with a broadening out in equity market returns. Chinese policy makers responded to continued weak growth with a number of policy measures to boost their economy, which added some optimism to global growth.

This months stock pick is Haleon, the spin out of GSK with a a number of consumer health brands. This months ethical news covers renewables, no more UK coal, Europe's record rainfall and the national butterfly emergency. Meanwhile, winning this month is the one-horned rhinoceros located in Assam, India. Losing this month is ExxonMobil who are being sued by the state of California for decades of misleading consumers.

Please remember that the value of investments and the income arising from them may fall as well as rise and is not guaranteed. All information contained has been prepared by King & Shaxson Asset Management. All opinions and estimates constitute our judgement as of the date of publication and do not constitute general or specific investment advice.

This podcast will provide an overview of the core and satellite thematic allocation that makes up our newly launched Brighter World Model Portfolios. The portfolios, launched in December 2023, provide investors access to a core equity and bond allocation that provides some familiarity to traditional indices, albeit with a sufficiently robust screen in place. The additional satellite thematic allocation builds in a layer of diversification to target areas of interest to clients around sustainability without being overly exposed to one sector or theme.

We hope this will provide some background and insight into the thought process of this construction and how it differentiates from other sustainable low-cost portfolios in the marketplace.

Please remember that the value of investments and the income arising from them may fall as well as rise and is not guaranteed. All information contained in this podcast has been prepared by King & Shaxson Asset Management. All opinions and estimates constitute our judgement as of the date of publication and do not constitute general or specific investment advice.

For professional clients. The mounting doubt over the health and outlook of the US economy that had begun to build in July accelerated into the early part of August. Interest cut expectations are building whilst many other major economies (except Japan) go down the path of rate cuts. Small and mid-cap companies were weaker in August versus larger-cap peers, as following the bout of volatility in in the early stages of the month, volumes and returns down the cap scale were muted for the remainder of the month.

Our MPS Stock pick is Stantec a global leader in sustainable engineering, architecture and environmental consulting. Ethical news covers Vauxhall's competitive EV pricing, the US' first hydrogen train, warmer frozen food (?!), and woodland regeneration in Dartmoor.

Please remember that the value of investments and the income arising from them may fall as well as rise and is not guaranteed. All opinions and estimates constitute our judgement as of the date of publication and do not constitute general or specific investment advice. Nothing in this document constitutes an offer to buy or sell securities of any type or should be construed as an offer or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe or sell any investment or to engage in any other transaction.

Big tech stocks were once more in the spotlight during the month of July, but for vastly different reasons as the unwinding of the big tech trade took hold. Alongside the growing scepticism towards technology investment in AI paying off anytime soon, markets have been moving amid mounting doubt over the health and outlook for the US economy. Meanwhile, politics continued to have an important role in market positioning.

Our stock pick this month is Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure, whilst ethical news includes E.ON expanding district heating, beverage container recycling, record UK renewables and the roll out of meat alternatives.

Please remember that the value of investments and the income arising from them may fall as well as rise and is not guaranteed. All information contained in this document has been prepared by King & Shaxson Asset Management. All opinions and estimates constitute our judgement as of the date of publication and do not constitute general or specific investment advice. Nothing in this document constitutes an offer to buy or sell securities of any type or should be construed as an offer or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe or sell any investment or to engage in any other transaction.

For professional clients only. Big Tech continued to climb higher, further raising questions over market breadth. In the second quarter, more sectors in the main US bourses were negative than were positive, whilst larger capitalised companies with strong balance sheets continue to outperform. Meanwhile, politics was front and centre in June, with elections in India and Europe, whilst the UK & US built up to theirs (the Labour party decisively winning the UK election in July).

This months stock selection is Klabin, a leader in the paper and pulp industry, specialising in the production of sustainable paper & packaging solutions. Our ethical news section covers a range of issues, from Lidl working with WWF to reduce food waste, to BP taking a more conservative approach to clean energy.