Your IndustryJul 3 2015

Back in the day: August 1998

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Back in the day: August 1998

This week marks the 18th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong on the 30 June and so we take a look back at the August 1998 issue which reviewed the Hong Kong market one year on.

Former Money Management deputy editor, Deborah Lamb, considers the impact of Hong Kong’s rebirth as a city a year after the handover and the resulting prospect of UK investors in Hong Kong. In the brief period of a year, the Hang Seng’s daily turnover plummeted from $5bn (£3.2bn) per day to just $500m (£320m) by the issue’s publication – the Hong Kong economy was sliding into recession. The article examines this decline, stating that whether or not Hong Kong will continue to peg their currency to the US dollar was “a key consideration for potential investors”. Despite this the article was concluded in a positive note, assuring “that a recovery will take place” and that Hong Kong will “bounce back and thrive”.

This development of technology over the last 20 years or so is brought to light by revisiting this issue. The magazine features an article persuading advisers to embrace software packages for their businesses. A drawback of the technology at the time was that few software suppliers offered products that met the needs of IFAs. The process of installing software was also laboriously time consuming and costly, transferring data could take up to three weeks. Adverts for software are threaded throughout the issue, significantly, all advertising that their systems are “millennium-proof”.

Elsewhere in the issue, a feature reports on the top 100 unit trusts of the previous five years. In 1998, placing £1,000 in an average trust fund would have seen a return of £1,650. With the 1992-93 recession forcing European companies into boosting their efficiency meant that the European sector almost entirely dominated the top 100. The article encourages thorough research, including considering the investment process and efficiency of systems, before choosing a unit trust.

In other news…

Bombings linked to the Al-Qaeda hit US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, injuring thousands of civilians and killing hundreds.

Elsewhere, US President Bill Clinton admitted to conducting an affair with former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

And ‘No Matter What’ by Boyzone was topped the UK singles chart.

Previous Back in the day

June 1984

June 1975

May 1999