Inside Nutmeg

I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Martin Stead as the new CEO of Nutmeg.

At Nutmeg our mission is to make smart, professional investing available to everyone, no matter how much or how little you have to invest. Now, you can invest with just £500 (plus monthly contributions of £100 for portfolios below £5,000).

Here at Nutmeg, we’re all about making smart investing available to everyone. Now we’re bringing our message to even more people across the UK with our new TV campaign “Just Nutmeg it”.

At Nutmeg, we make investment decisions on your behalf. That’s what we call ‘discretionary’ investment management. At the same time, you have the freedom to withdraw your money whenever you want, at no cost. But knowing when to review your Nutmeg account is crucial. Making frequent withdrawals or other account changes for a short-term fix to your finances can seriously damage the long-term net returns you’ll get on your investments.

We recently confirmed our first set of three-year performance figures. This is a significant milestone for Nutmeg and I’m delighted to say we have delivered excellent net returns for our customers since launching to the public in October 2012. This proves the value of having an intelligent, high-quality – and most importantly long-term – investment strategy.

It’s been a turbulent time in markets for the month of April, particularly for bond markets where we have finally seen a long-expected decline. This update is for the period 15th April to 12th May 2015.

On Thursday 16th April  2015 we scooped the award for the ‘Best ETF Investor 2014’ category at the high-profile ETF.com Europe Awards.

Without doubt, the investment management industry is finally waking up to the digital revolution. Thank goodness!

I’m delighted to announce that Nutmeg has secured $32 million in investments from a group of new shareholders who share our desire to shape the future of the finance industry and grow the company.

The global financial markets have seen a drop-off in recent weeks and the impacts have been felt across the vast majority of investment assets. While Nutmeg portfolios have fallen in value too, the performance is better than comparable benchmarks. Plus, economic growth forecasts for 2014 remain strong, so there’s no reason to suspect this is anything more than a blip and most likely a reaction to anticipated tapering in the US (a reduction of its bond buying programme that has been stimulating the economy since 2008).

Nutmeg recently announced its annual portfolio performance figures for the 12 months to end of September 2013 and I’m pleased to say we have delivered excellent results for our customers. I’d like to explain a little more about the process and decisions that have contributed to such good returns. 

The sharp slowdown in China’s growth was the key news in July in terms of performance across asset classes, coupled with deliberations over when the US Federal Reserve would reduce its bond-buying programme.