News
Dawnay Day Milroy Response over recent press speculation.
Following speculation in the press surrounding the future of the Dawnay Day Group in the UK, we want to reassure you that our business is not impacted.
Financial Focus Spring 2008
Interview with Paul Stanfield March 08
Investment Forecasts and Strategy for 2008
By Paul stanfield, Director, Pegasus Financial Services Ltd
Investment Forecasts and Strategy for 2008
Lifetime Mortgages 28.02.08
By Paul stanfield, Director, Pegasus Financial Services Ltd
UK Commercial Property Update Jan 08
By Paul stanfield, Director, Pegasus Financial Services Ltd
UK Commercial Property Update Jan 2008
China & Global Warming - affecting our food prices?
By Eamon Bermingham, Associate Director, Pegasus Financial Services Ltd
When people think of commodities they usually think of Oil or Gas or Metals such as Copper, Zinc etc the prices of which have been at or near record highs largely due to demand from China and India. These are known as hard commodities but experts are predicting that agricultural or ‘soft’ commodities Coffee, Meat, Wheat and Corn are in the early stages of a long term bull market again due to demand from China and India and shortage of supply due to adverse weather conditions (Global Warming). Continue Reading China and Global Warming
Homeowner Costs Banks a Fortune! (Part II)
Homeowner Costs Banks a Fortune! (Part I)
Investor letter from Forsyth
Close Appoints Experienced in-house Talent
Forsyth Partners Q&A
30th August 2007
forsyth_partners_client_QA (28kb)
Forsyth Partners announces withdrawal from Dubai
27th August 2007
forsyth_partners_press_release.pdf (29kb)
Re: Close Investment Managers
17th August 2007
You may or may not be aware that some key investment managers at Close Jersey have resigned to join a local competitor. These investment managers were responsible for the All Weather Fund and Euro Income Bond Fund, as well as the discretionary fund services (Progressive and Dynamic).
As your financial advisors we are in constant dialogue with Close, who has advised us that the day to day management of these funds will be shared between the 40 or so Investment Managers currently employed by Close. Some of these managers are now in Jersey and we are scheduled to meet them shortly.
In the interim we will continue to monitor the performance of the Close funds, as we do with all of the funds where we advise our clients to invest their money, to ensure that they are performing well within their peer group, and to our expectations.
At this point in time we do not believe that the changes will be detrimental to these funds. However, if our opinion on this issue alters, we will inform you immediately. If you do not hear any further from us, you can rest assured that all is fine, in our opinion.
If you require any further information please contact your usual Pegasus Consultant, any of our offices, or visit our website (www.pegasus-fs.com/spain) where we will be posting any relevant updates.
Yours sincerely
Eamon Bermingham
Associate Director
Javea 0034966 461562
Marbella 0034952821926
Jersey 0044 1534 280028
Commentary for August 15 2007
The US and European stock markets fell sharply on Thursday, following the news that French banking group BNP Paribas had halted withdrawals from three of its funds with exposure to sub-prime, or higher risk loans. The group cited difficulties in valuing assets in the absence of liquidity in the market as the reason for the freeze. In a bid to bring stability to the markets, the European Central Bank (ECB) injected liquidity of 94.8 billion euros* ($130 billion) into the banking system. This represents the largest such intervention by the ECB since the 11 September 2001 attacks. Central banks in the US, Canada, Japan and Australia all followed suit. Taking cue from global markets, Asian stocks opened sharply lower on Friday. While markets have continued to react to further company news and the full extent of the credit market related problems may not be yet known, indiscriminate selling driven by investor concerns continues to add to market volatility. We do however believe that underlying macroeconomic fundamentals and company prospects remain strong. From a macro view point, the question is whether these negative developments surrounding the sub prime crisis are having a strong enough impact to cause business and economic activity to slow down significantly around the world. Outside of the US economy, there still appears to be plenty of economic growth. Economic news from China and the rest of Asia has been very strong. Growth has softened somewhat in Europe, but from very high levels and the profits boom continues in Japan. The Global economy is expanded at a 5% annual rate for over three years, its strongest expansion pace since 1960 and, most importantly, inflation has stayed very low despite this strong global growth. We believe the world economy has too much forward momentum for a bear market in stocks to take hold at the present time. In addition, the corporate sector as a whole is still very under leveraged with balance sheets and cash flow generation the strongest we have seen for some time. The current sell-off could be an opportunity for our portfolio managers to selectively buy attractive assets which may have been negatively impacted in the short term.
We expect that August will continue to be a volatile month and markets may well trade lower before they stabilise but we do not think that this is the big final sell-off which would mark the end of the global equity bull market. We are not complacent but genuinely feel that our fund managers will get through this period and rally sharply later in the year. We feel global economic growth will pull the managers through.
Pegasus View
14th August 2007
As part of our role as Independent Financial Advisors, we meet with local investment managers on a quarterly basis to discuss the performance of their services over the pervious quarter, the reasons behind it, and to get their outlook for the coming months.
Of the managers we met this quarter all of them have outperformed their cash benchmarks over the previous quarter and some by 2 and 3 times. Major stock markets have been very strong over the first 6 months of the year with the German market (Dax) leading the way +21.4%. Commodities, hard (gold, metals) and soft (wheat, grain) continue to perform well, while equities have rallied.
We feel that the stock markets in general will continue on an upward trend albeit with increased volatility due to rising concerns of a worsening crisis in the US sub-prime mortgage market. Equities remain the best value of all the asset classes and are relatively cheap by historic standards. Our view is that economic growth will remain strong, led by emerging markets such as China, which has just delivered 11.9% GDP growth to the end of the second quarter.
Bond markets are expected to remain weak as interest rates are set to rise and look expensive relative to equities. Another quarter of a percent increase in the UK based rate has been priced in and is likely to happen before the end of the year. The Fed however is likely to keep interest rates on hold and possibly move to an easing bias in the third quarter.
Demand for commodities is expected to remain strong as adverse weather conditions and a shortage of supply in China help increase prices. Oil has rallied due in large part to increasing demand as well as geopolitical tensions, and now trades above $70 per barrel.
Currencies have seen a period of relative stability with sterling / dollar trading between US$ 1.95 and $2.01 over the second quarter and euro / US$ trading between euro 1.33 and 1.36. Even the Yen has been in a fairly tight range against the dollar.
In summary, our long-term view remains that equities are the cheapest of the major asset classes and that the bull market will resume once the current correction has run its course. If commodities and equities break down significantly, thereby signalling that the current debt crisis is evolving into something more sinister, then we will reassess this position but as of today we remain cautiously optimistic.
2nd April 2007
Pegasus is pleased to announce the opening of its two representative offices in Spain from the beginning of April 2007. Pegasus in Jersey will be providing expert advice on a wide range of investments, life assurance products and pensions. The representative offices in Jávea and Marbella will be providing financial planning services for the needs of expatriate clients on the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol respectively. For further information please contact us.