Both previous incumbents of the White House pushed the North Korean issue aside, but Mr Trump has made this a key issue and it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
With all the attention on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we asked investigative photo- journalist, Jeremy Hunter to give us an inside view of the Hermit Kingdom. Having first entered the country just before the death of Kim Jong-Il to attend and photograph the Arirang spectacular (see page 8), he reveals a regime where the only expectation in life is a good supply of tap water, round-the-clock electricity and unlimited amounts of white rice.
From a fairly primitive existence to AI and automation; in our editorial feature, James Godrich explores how the latest technological advancements might affect productivity for future generations. For many automation is seen as the biggest threat to non-creative jobs, but James argues that, whilst challenges are presented, these are outweighed by the opportunities that exist to benefit society in the future.
Technology also featured as a theme in our investor conference in May at the Kia Oval. Revolving around global structural change, one of the keynote speakers, Tom Slater from Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, one of the oldest Investment Trusts, discussed the broadening impact of the technological progress we are witnessing today. The conference is summarised on page 28 and videos of the speakers can be found on our website at www.jmfinn.com/conference.
We continue to place a focus within this periodical on underlying investments and as ever have covered a series of stocks. One of these in this issue is Tencent, the Chinese social media and gaming company which is looking to overtake Amazon in terms of market capitalisation. These stocks are those that are covered by our in-house research team and increasingly coverage will extend to global companies that are considered the leaders in their fields, as we look to offer a more global outlook to our investment process.
Markets have recovered from the first quarter and we now seem to be bumping along the highs reached at the end of last year. The fundamentals of most companies seem to be intact, so we hope we can continue in this vein and any shocks can be absorbed. I maintain my concerns about the political situation at home but my suspicion is that the rhetoric one is hearing about the unrest within the Labour party allays my fears for the economy of a change in government in the short-term.
So with the world economy growing by 3.9%, our economy at under 2%, and similarly the United States and emerging economies growing by significantly more, I am generally looking to invest globally to achieve a diversified portfolio.
To close, I’d like to make all clients and readers aware of our client portal, which we feel is an appropriate solution to several of our current challenges. Firstly, the portal can reduce the amount of paper we send, as all formal portfolio paperwork can be sent electronically; it can mitigate some of the risks that are imposed by the rise of cyber-crime, as messages and attachments can be sent securely via our portal; and nally it allows clients to view their portfolio on a regular basis. As ever, I would encourage you to feed back any comments and wishes you may have for both the portal and how we can continue to enhance it, and likewise for this periodical.
As I write, the headlines are being dominated by President Trump’s non-conformist approach to foreign policy, which, whatever we may think of it, seems to be working. Both previous incumbents of the White House pushed the North Korean issue aside, but Mr Trump has made this a key issue and it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
With all the attention on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we asked investigative photo- journalist, Jeremy Hunter to give us an inside view of the Hermit Kingdom. Having first entered the country just before the death of Kim Jong-Il to attend and photograph the Arirang spectacular (see page 8), he reveals a regime where the only expectation in life is a good supply of tap water, round-the-clock electricity and unlimited amounts of white rice.
From a fairly primitive existence to AI and automation; in our editorial feature, James Godrich explores how the latest technological advancements might affect productivity for future generations. For many automation is seen as the biggest threat to non-creative jobs, but James argues that, whilst challenges are presented, these are outweighed by the opportunities that exist to benefit society in the future.
Technology also featured as a theme in our investor conference in May at the Kia Oval. Revolving around global structural change, one of the keynote speakers, Tom Slater from Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, one of the oldest Investment Trusts, discussed the broadening impact of the technological progress we are witnessing today. The conference is summarised on page 28 and videos of the speakers can be found on our website at www.jmfinn.com/conference.
James Edgedale
Chairman
