Tools of the Trade: what makes Brown Shipley's Brandreth tick?

Alex Brandreth is a research analyst at Brown Shipley, focusing on collective investment funds. Prior to joining in 2010, he was an investment analyst at Greystone Wealth Management.

Forex Factory Calendar

Brandreth has been using this for the past five years. ‘It enables you to chart historic releases, relative to forecast expectations. It also allows you to go to the source of the information so you can delve into the detail of the release,’ he says.

‘I use this website every day, it helps with understanding sentiment in the market as well as up-coming releases that could have a dramatic impact on the wider market in the short term.

‘It goes through data releases in different regions, the time that they are going to be released and the data figure that was predicted alongside the actual. For example, the market really reacted to the non-farm employment data [released last week] so this really helped show why the market moved.’

The Big Short, Michael Lewis

Brandreth read this over Christmas and would recommend it as a good overview of the ways investment managers can get strong returns from comparatively small positions.

‘It’s a good read. It goes into the engineering of financial products while looking at the housing bubble in the US, and how a few savvy investors benefited. This helps provide a good overview on how we got where we are.’

LinkedIn App

‘I have got an app on my iPhone for LinkedIn. It summarises everything that’s on the website

and it’s great for keeping in touch with people who have been in the industry,’ says Brandreth.

‘There is also a newsfeed and it keeps you up to date with what’s happening in the market. It seems a good way to promote your business. We have been doing a lot of work with IFAs and it has been useful.’