IN THIS YEAR’S REVIEW, WE MEET QUERCUS PETRAEA, THE SESSILE OAK, IN CORNWALL’S ATLANTIC RAINFOREST.

These trees can live for a millennium – 300 years growing, 400 years tall, followed by another 300 years decomposing into the soil, nurturing the next cycle of life.

The sessile oak and its surroundings provide a neat contrast to the current hyper-financialised economic order. Henry Maxey examines this fragile ecosystem, and sees markets driven more by flows than fundamentals, and self-reinforcing patterns that tend to extremes. Here there are risks for the unwary, but opportunities for the alert.

Alexander Chartres looks back to the Industrial and French Revolutions before casting forward to the revolutions underway in energy, robotics and artificial intelligence. Hannah Nairn and Matt Smith bring us lessons on tariffs and currencies from this time last century. While Jonathan Ruffer takes us back to his first investment, in 1967, as he reflects on life as a contrarian investor, and the art of distinguishing between being too early and just being wrong.

What we hope to convey each year with the Ruffer Review is some of the thinking behind our investment decisions. We also aim to showcase some of the team whose collective efforts come together beneath the name that sits over our door.

CHRIS BACON

Chief Executive