For a generation now, investors, regulators and consumers have been dealing with a monumental ‘unwind’ process, that sought to and succeeded in shaking the bane of inflation and high interest rates out of the global economic system. In more recent years these concerted and aggressive acts of governments and central banks have consequently pushed this fix-up barrow too far… So now we head into the another great unwind, the ‘normalisation’ phase where interest rates start to rise and inflation returns. But there’s a problem...

Increasing tensions between the US and North Korea seem to be starting to weigh on investors’ minds which is as it should be.

The recent stock market has, like an Indian summer, been most benevolent: a feeling of confidence has seen many investors with portfolios fully committed to a rising market, while a small minority have been building cash reserves. There are echoes here of Aesop’s fable on the grasshopper and the ant. They had very different strategies and only one came out on top.