The most interesting investment story of 2023 was how all the experts and commentators — me included — got the market so wrong. Along with many others, I thought we’d be mired in a recession with stocks getting a good beating. How wrong we were. But I’m not about to let that stop me putting out some adventurous investment thoughts for 2024. Most measures of financial market volatility are presently very low — in fact well below their long-term averages.
It nonetheless feels potentially volatile out there. Even if you don’t subscribe to the view that we’re slipping into a slowdown, there are plenty of reasons — not least electoral — to think that matters might be about to get more turbulent. Hedging against an uptick in volatility is tricky for most private investors but two vehicles stand out. The first is BH Macro, a listed hedge fund which tends to do well when markets wobble, and less well when the bulls are rampant. The other is spread betting and trading firm Plus50