Harry Morgan - Highs and Lows, Booms and Crashes

Our speaker was Harry Morgan. Brian advised members that he held the record for the number of presentations to the club. Brian described him as a wealth, investment and fund manager, who has recently retired but continues to work for various charities. He gained an M.B.A. from Heriot-Watt University in 2014.

Harry advised us that he gave his first talk to the club in 1999 and in the subsequent 21 years has given a total of 10 talks.

He described how until recently all that mattered for a company was to increase its profits and therefore its share price. However in 2021 there has been a change to ESG ie Environmental, Social, Governance. Investors are now more interested in sustainability. Unilever is an example of a company that “gets this” and has been rewarded by investors.

Harry then showed us a slide showing the level of the FTSE 100 index over the past 20 years. There have been four major falls and rises of the index in that time namely the crash in the early 2000’s, the financial crisis of 2008, Brexit and the pandemic.

Harry advised us how to value an equity. This involves strategic, financial and technical analysis, and he told us about other influences namely politics/tax regulations, money flows, high frequency trading and behaviours such as over confidence and confirmation bias. He mentioned various UK companies facing huge challenges and some who “get it right”. Again sustainability is a factor in these companies.

Harry finished with two thoughts.

1). Can you trust the government?

2). Will there be another great crash like 1929?

There were several questions from members. Harry advised individuals to diversify their investments and always to hold some cash.

The club’s vote of thanks for what had been a most interesting and informative talk was given by Roy Stirrat.