Investment – Independent Advice Ltd.

12/11/202612/11/2026

Seasons Greetings

Don’t worry, I’m not one of those who stretches Christmas out over 2 months. Less “‘Tis the season to be jolly” this blog is more “‘Tis the season to make money”. In my last blog I revisited seasonality, explaining that more of our financial returns occur over the northern hemisphere winter period versus over the summer period. Team that up with year three of a presidential cycle usually bringing the best returns out of the four and we stop battling a headwind and enter a period with a tailwind.

Rebalance

As you can see we rebalanced yesterday and put some of our cash to use. Interest rates in the UK rose by 0.25% recently which will no doubt filter through to our cash held on platform soon, but we believe we can now do better than just a cash return over the coming months. Some defensive shares (not defence industry) have been let go or reduced, some on our long term watchlist have been added and some of our past and current star performers have been increased.

This rebalance reflects 4 geo-political changes that have occurred since the Spring series of equity sales.

20/10/2026

What am I thinking?

Hasn’t the year flown by so far? We are already mid way through October, well in to “The Spooky Season” and that leaves less than 10 weeks left until Christmas!

Hunting Season

Half way through October marks a special time in the seasonal investment returns calendar. These next two quarters on average bring around double the return we receive over the previous two quarters. As you know October to March last year brought a far higher return than we could have rightly expected and April to September has been below average at best. Holding more of our portfolios in cash throughout the Summer when return expectations were low has been a comfort to many clients. Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of Black Monday. The FTSE 100 fell 10.8% on the Monday followed by 12.2% on the Tuesday. I had only been in the industry since February ’87 so it was a rude awakening indeed. There was much talk of a similar market outcome yesterday, but we were spared. Perhaps the 40th anniversary next year is the one to look out for. Celebrating 40 years in this profession next February 3rd will be pretty special for me.

Political Season

Along with the opportunities that this coming period of the calendar brings, we receive another tailwind from the US Presidential cycle. This third year is on average the strongest of the four year cycle. So a couple of intersecting good investment periods on the doorstep; What’s not to like?

07/08/202607/08/2026

Dry Spell

Met Office UK 1 Month Long Range Weather Forecast

The broad theme of high pressure remaining in place at least close to the UK seems most probable, with occasional more unsettled or changeable interludes, either resulting from Atlantic frontal systems or thundery plumes. This means that rainfall amounts overall are more likely to be below normal than above. Temperatures will probably be above average and some spells of hot weather and heatwaves are possible, especially in the south.

Are we any the wiser now? Was it worth the time it took to read this? Let’s look at how many “we don’t knows” feature in the above paragraph.

broad theme – at least close to – most probable – occasional – more unsettled – changeable – either – more likely – probably – some spells – are possible.

11 “we don’t knows”. 20 out of a total of 69 words. However we are talking about the relatively short term weather here, not to be confused with stating facts about the obviously changing climate. Here’s some climatology definitions-

Weather

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) : “what you experience when you step outside on any given day.” NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration): “conditions outside right now in a specific place (rain, snow, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.)”.

Climate

NOAA: “Climate is determined by the long-term pattern of temperature and precipitation averages and extremes at a location.” NASA: “The climate of a region or city is its typical or average weather” — determined by observing weather conditions over many years, typically 30 years or more.

Climate Change

NOAA: “changes in average weather conditions that persist over multiple decades or longer.” NASA: “a change in average conditions (temperature, rainfall, etc.) over a long period of time’.

All of the above definitions have been grabbed off the web by AI. So perhaps take them as a guideline only, but these are the guys with accurate measuring equipment and no axe to grind.