Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Friday 3 October 2025. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
Africa’s population growth has surprised a lot of investors says Guinness CIO
“Africa’s population is growing so quickly, it has surprised a lot of investors”, according to Guinness Global Investors CIO Edmund Harriss.
The chief investment officer made these comments at the investment management firm’s conference in September.
However, the issues surrounding Africa, from an investment perspective is that the average age of someone living in the continent is 19.
Index tracking funds experience first outflows since October 2023
Index tracking funds saw their biggest ever monthly outflows (£387m) in August 2025, following a 22-month inflow streak.
This is according to Investment Association (IA) data, which also shows outflows of £1.1bn from fixed income trackers which helped to drive the first outflows experienced for trackers since October 2023 as a whole.
Reading the Autumn Budget before it’s written
I wasn’t in Liverpool for the Labour Party Conference. I was in London with three screens, a pot of industrial-strength coffee, and a WhatsApp chorus from people who were writes Ad Lucem founder Philip Wickenden.
But you didn’t need a conference pass to catch the scent: caution, deliberately worn like cologne. From the main stage to the fringe, the soundtrack was stability first – not as a slogan, but as a veto on anything that spooks gilts or sprays headroom up the wall.
Watching from a distance is clarifying. You’re spared the chutzpah and left with the words, the sequencing, and the tells. Starmer’s “not cost-free” refrain and Reeves’s “no risks” catechism formed a neat call-and-response.
Quote Of The Day
In the battle of the manager versus the machine, humans have been punching above their weight with UK funds so far this year. In both the UK All Companies and UK Equity Income categories, the top 10 performers were dominated by actively managed funds
-AJ Bell head of markets Dan Coatsworth on 2025 being a great year for UK shares and active management
Stat Attack
Research from Alliance Witan has found how many investors wish they had begun investing at an earlier age.
59%
of investors wished they had started investing at an earlier age.
75%
of 18-34 year olds wish they had begun investing earlier compared to 66% of 35-54 year olds and 45% of those aged 55+.
23%
plan to increase the amount they invest, with this rising to 40% for 18-34 year olds.
49%
revealed that it took them a long time to get comfortable with the idea of investing.
72%
think that efforts are needed more widely to make investing feel more comfortable to the public.
Source: Alliance Witan
In Other News
W1M Wealth Management, the merged wealth and investment management firm of Waverton and London & Capital, has announce that it has appointed Jake Lewis as the firm’s business development manager for adviser solutions.
Lewis will be responsible for developing and managing adviser relationships across Greater London, as well as selling W1M’s full range of solutions from MPS to bespoke portfolios.
Lewis brings over 20 years’ sales experience in the wealth management sector. He joins W1M from Rathbones Group, where he spent the last five years as business development director. Prior to that, Lewis was a senior business development manager at Brooks Macdonald for three years, while also previously holding roles at Coram Asset Management and Premier Miton.
Foreign investors can exploit cheaper dollar hedges as Fed easing resumes (Reuters)
Green leader calls for BoE to end interest payments to commercial banks (Financial Times)
FTSE 100 to test record, pound hovers close to $1.34 (Bloomberg)
Did You See?
Quilter-owned digital savings and investment platform NuWealth has rebranded as Quilter Invest.
This marks a key step in its integration with Quilter and creating a more cohesive experience for customers and financial advisers.
The platform is designed to support clients in the earlier stages of their investment journey, while also offering advisers a way to engage clients who may not yet be ready for full financial advice.
Quilter Invest also enables advisers to nurture prospective clients, such as younger family members of existing clients, allowing them to start investing today while laying the groundwork for deeper relationships in the future.
