Not a good month for equities in general and Athelney Trust in particular, with the latter’s NAV falling by 1.3% to 280.1. Cineworld was a notable casualty, dropping by 18.2% on plans to buy the Regal cinema chain in the U.S. This fall despite the company’s statement that it intends to maintain the present progressive dividend policy and that the acquisition would be earnings enhancing. Samuel Heath, Andrews Sykes and KCOM all fell on the publication of (in my opinion) perfectly respectable interim figures, whereas Trinity Mirror decreased despite share buy-backs. Debenhams and Wynnstay seemed to dip on nothing very much. So a rather odd month in retrospect.

Profit warnings have also been to the fore recently as are the painful price falls which accompany them. What is worrying about the recent spate is the sheer number of them and the scale of the market response. With 75 profit warnings in the third quarter and companies lining up to warn shareholders in October and November, it is a fair bet that 2017 will be one of the worst for warnings in recent years. Furthermore, more than 40% of them were warning for the second time and the threat of multiple warnings has increased the average share price drop. Analysts forecasts can be too optimistic and fail to see through the fog of Brexit. More controversially, the fashion for passive investing has, in my opinion, resulted in not enough of us following and analysing companies. There is no silver bullet for all this but, in these odd markets, be well diversified: a 50% fall in a one-share portfolio is painful but in Athelney’s 80-plus holdings a fall of 50% in one of them much less so.