Is it time for investors to get excited about UK equities?

Join Scott Spencer and Anthony Willis from the BMO Multi-Manager People as they look back on a unbridled 12 months and hopefully look ahead to a brighter future away from lockdown.

Uneven vaccine roll outs mean some countries are easing lockdowns while others are staying the same. How will this play out?
No hiding place: is rising inflation a real threat to bonds and equities?

While advisers are generally well aware of the traditional portfolio investment risks such as market, liquidity and volatility, today we will investigate concentration risk. Graham will discuss whether this relatively less well considered risk has now significantly appreciated through the increased use of index or benchmark funds in portfolios.

With little exposure to the traditional UK mega-caps and holdings as diverse as brick manufacturers and music royalty stocks, the portfolio of BMO Capital and Income Investment Trust is different to many of its peers. Manager Julian Cane outlines stocks and sectors that are currently attractively valued and that he believes will generate positive capital and income growth as the UK economy emerges from the pandemic crisis.

Robert Plant and Keith Balmer explore how our Universal MAP Income Fund sources yield from across a range of asset types, talk about the strategies they use to supplement natural yield and argue the case for maintaining a perspective on total return as well as income.

Paul provides an in-depth guide to understanding how collective investments are taxed to help you plan and mitigate your clients’ tax liability.

Our world faces significant challenges – climate change, social inequalities and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic to name a few. But we at BMO GAM are optimistic about the future, believing in the ability of society, companies and individuals to discover sustainable solutions to respond to these challenges and create opportunity from adversity. Our Responsible Global Equity Strategy strives to play its part in mobilising private capital towards securing a more sustainable future for all. Join our quarterly update with Jamie Jenkins, Director of our Responsible Global Equity Fund, where we look at the fund performance and opportunities over the last quarter.

As the vaccine roll out continues, markets are now trying to gauge the pace and sustainability of the recovery from the pandemic. Chief Economist Steven Bell will set out a path for global economic activity and corporate profits with a view to judging the prospects for equites and bonds.

Talking impact - we take a closer look at the positive difference investing with a sustainability-focused mindset can make. Vicki and Simon assess how our BMO Sustainable Universal MAP Range stacks up over metrics such as carbon intensity, diversity and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, then highlight the progress achieved through encouraging companies to operate more sustainably as part of our Stewardship activities.

Three of BMO’s investment trust managers discuss their non-traditional approaches to generating income from inherently growth portfolios. They debate their tactics to navigate the volatile markets caused by Covid-19 and how, or if, they’ve adapted their portfolios.

The regulatory intent of MIFID II was to enable investors to see and fully understand all the costs involved in investing in a fund. With this in mind Graham will investigate the factors and methodologies impacting the calculation of the explicit and implicit elements of transaction costs.

In a fast-moving world, it’s easy to forget the merits of ‘slow and steady’, an ethos that runs deep at Gravis Capital. Join Kelly and Anthony as they talk long-term investing in real UK assets like nurseries’, domestic boilers and energy and Infrastructure assets with Gravis’ David Conlon.

Chris introduces two new funds, both with a capped OCF of 25bps, which seek to offer investors an enhanced level of income by utilising a covered index call strategy. He explains how the BMO Enhanced Income UK Equity Fund and BMO Enhanced Income Euro Equity Fund are structured; how the call strategy is implemented and the funds’ potential use within client portfolios.

Phil looks at the UK income market through a different lens. His focus is structural rather than cyclical growth. What’s different? A concentrated portfolio with zero exposure to the traditional dividend sectors of high street banks, oil & gas or telecoms.