A busy working week for Matthew Brown, Head of Discretionary Portfolio Management
This article first appeared in the Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce website, 8th August 2022, click here to view the article.
Monday 25th July
First day back from two weeks in Portugal. Wow, that’s a lot of emails! Working from home actually helped me plough through them. Fortunately the team had picked up anything urgent when I was off so the day was spent catching up with markets. Although I keep an eye on them when on holiday, there are still things I miss so a good recap is always useful. The laptop is turned off at 5pm sharp – not a bad first day back.
Tuesday 26th July
Out of the office again today for an Emerging Leaders Vistage course. This is a two year course designed to help develop my leadership skills, ensuring I drive the business forward to help reach its goals. The focus this session was the Business Model. Do we know our client segments? How does our proposition fit with their needs and expectations and what do we need to focus on to ensure the business continues to grow in an ever changing market? This was a very useful exercise, that I intend to bring back to the business and work through with both management and team members to ensure the whole business is very clear on what the goals are, with the clients in mind.
I consider going to the gym but as I don’t get home until 7.30pm I think this is a good enough excuse not to go.
Wednesday 27th July
First day back in the office. Lots of short meetings today to get back up to speed with team members. Between meetings, I am looking at portfolios and ensuring that the holdings still remain appropriate for clients. Markets were a little less volatile over the last couple of weeks so there has been no change to our strategy.
Consider the gym again but the children need ferried about to various activities so I find another (good?) excuse not to go.
Thursday 28th July
Back in the office today and I have a couple of client meetings. It is so nice to be seeing clients face to face again. We offer a bespoke service to clients, many of whom have become friends over the years, so face to face meetings are much more personal and help build that long lasting relationship.
At last, I make it to the gym but I ease myself back in gently.
Friday 29th July
A gentle gym session was the right thing to do – I had a good night’s sleep and my muscles aren’t grumbling this morning. At this rate though I’ll have worked off the extra holiday weight by Christmas! Might need to start going more than once a week.
As part of ongoing research, I listen in to a webchat about investing in inflationary times. Interest rates have been rising to counter inflation, having an effect on markets. There is still some uncertainty around where rates will end up but hopefully Central Banks have things under control. I do some initial research on a fund that we are interested in. I will take my initial findings to our Investment Committee next week to discuss whether we should explore this further as a potential addition to client portfolios.
Where has the week gone? Portugal seems like a long time ago (and my tan is fading fast) – think I will spend some time this weekend looking for the next holiday!
