Chris Bredin: Struggles in Platform Land

Advised AUA, as is expected when markets are on the up, rose by a respectable, but not exceptional, 4.5% to £418bn over the quarter, and by 8.9% over the year. These are pretty good results but they were driven largely by positive markets over the first half of the year, rather than exceptional flows. Q2 was a bit of a mixed bag for advised flows. Compared with Q2 2018, gross flows were down 24%, but were 3% up on Q1 this year. Now, this does not seem like much but, given we have not seen a quarter-on-quarter increase in total flows since Q4 2017, this is something to write home about. N...