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All-weather investing

Seeking consistent positive returns.

Come rain or shine.

Ruffer provides investment management services for institutions, pension funds, charities, financial planners and individual investors.
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London
Ruffer LLP
80 Victoria Street
London SW1E 5JL
Paris
Ruffer S.A.
103 boulevard Haussmann
75008 Paris, France
New York
Ruffer LLC
300 Park Avenue
New York NY 10022
Edinburgh
Ruffer LLP
31 Charlotte Square
Edinburgh EH2 4ET

Market views

Cash is trash, or is it?
In the October edition of Duncan MacInnes' Citywire column, he explains why Ruffer is sitting on the highest cash weighting in its history.
Lessons for DC schemes from the LDI crisis
DC schemes and their investors can take some crucial lessons from recent whipsaws in the UK government bond market.
LGPS: liquidity lessons from the LDI crisis
The long-term hunt for yield has driven LGPS funds to adopt a liquidity barbell, with listed equities and bonds at one end of the spectrum and illiquid alternatives at the other. But these assets’ performance can be worryingly correlated at times of market stress.
Case of the misplaced money
Portfolios are prepared for a potential liquidation event in asset markets, “a waterfall of the things that can be sold, as distinct from the ones that can’t.” This article from Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, speaking to Ruffer’s Chief Investment Officer Henry Maxey, explores these changing liquidity dynamics.
The Barber Boom
The story of an economic gear shift which sent post-war Britain careering around country lanes, before skidding on an oil slick and being sent ditchward. There it was left, engine smoking, entangled in the brambles of inflation. It wasn’t until 1980 that road-side recovery eventually arrived in the shape of Paul Volcker and his inflation curbing toolkit.
The return of something to lose for pension asset allocators
Investor behaviour is both instinctive and learned. Low interest rates have taught investors to allocate to ever-riskier assets in the pursuit of returns. The cost of doing so, in the form of low or negative 'risk-free' rates, was minimal. But with rising interest rates, the risk-free rate now carries value - investor behaviour may be forced to change once again.
Inflation: bad for portfolios, good for society?
As inflation has soared to its highest level for 40 years, financial markets have taken fright, with most bond and equity markets down significantly so far in 2022. In fact, the US is now officially in a bear market, and inflation pressures show few signs of fading – quite the contrary.
What if?
Our approach to building portfolios favours being roughly right, as opposed to precisely wrong. The portfolio is designed to preserve capital across a range of economic and market outcomes. But naturally, we consider some outcomes more likely than others. At this critical juncture in markets, Duncan MacInnes offers an exercise in imagination - what if we are wrong? Fast forward a year from now, what would need to happen in the world to prove our concerns or hopes, misguided or misplaced?
What if we are wrong?
In the July edition of his Citywire column, Duncan MacInnes asks what would have to happen for us to look back in a year to find the post-pandemic bull market had suffered only a blip and inflation was just transitory?
DC pension schemes
Conventional strategies have served defined contribution (DC) pension scheme investors well for the past half century. But this year – as inflation has taken hold and policymakers scramble to contain it – the vulnerability of bonds and equities has been laid bare.
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