Want to stay informed with market insights and investing ideas from Morningstar? Sign up for our weekly Investor Focus newsletter here.
In This Week’s Newsletter:
- The Most-Shorted UK Stocks Right Now
- Are LSEG and RELX Really AI Losers?
- How the Largest UK Investment Trusts Performed
- Morningstar’s Mike Coop on Resilient Stocks
- Vanguard’s Gemmell on a Volatile Bond Market
- What Andy Burnham Means for Your Pension
- This FTSE 100 Fund Is Beating Its Competitors
The start of August gives us a chance to look back at fund performance in the month just gone, a punchy few weeks for global stock markets. Our revamped investment trust coverage captures the best and worst performing trusts overall, as well as how the largest trusts—where most UK investor money is entrusted—have done. Among ETFS available to UK investors, those focused on energy were the standout performers as oil prices spiked amid the ongoing tussle over Strait of Hormuz access.
In terms of this week’s video highlights, Karen Gilchrist spoke to Morningstar’s EMEA CIO Mike Coop about inflation, AI, and the outlook for the rest of 2026; she also interviewed Vanguard fixed-income specialist Kelly Gemmell on the risks of hyperscaler debt and the potential for bonds to outperform if an economic slowdown forces central banks to cut rates.
UK earnings season had its second big wave this week, with updates from housebuilder Persimmon PSN, BP BP., Diageo DGE, and banking giant HSBC HSBA, which is now the biggest stock in the index. Morningstar analysts held fair value estimates for all of these, but noted the big post-earnings spike in the share price of advertising leader WPP.
One reason why WPP WPP shares soared this week because investors have decided the stock can now be an “AI winner,” rather than just a victim of its disruptive effects, which has already seen thousands of jobs shed already in advertising and marketing. Can the same be said for UK data stocks such as LSEG, which runs the London Stock Exchange, and business information provider RELX? Christian Mayes checks in with analysts on their outlook.
WPP has also been a regular feature on the FCA’s most-shorted list of stocks in recent years but this week’s surge will have been painful for those professional investors betting on its decline. Likewise with EasyJet EZJ, which also makes it on to the most-shorted list, but whose shares are up 30% this year after a takeover battle between two US private equity firms. Christian Mayes has another look at the FTSE’s most-shorted stocks, some of which are sporting 60% gains and others nursing 55% losses, in the year to date.
New Prime Minister Andy Burnham may be on holiday and parliament in recess, but that doesn’t stop the slow buildup in speculation ahead of the Autumn Budget in late October. Ollie Smith looks again at the vexed question of the state pension triple lock—it’s staying for now—and the government’s possible other options for redistributing wealth for the wide-ranging social programs planned for the next 10 years.
James Gard, Editor, Morningstar UK
