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Katherine Garrett-Cox arrived in Dundee last year with a formidable reputation for asset management.

As the new chief executive of Alliance Trust, she gained more respect for moving into cash while others were left exposed to the worst of the downturn.

But the 120-year old Tayside finance house has just produced below par results, trailing the industry average.

Total shareholder return to end-July was at 8.8%, while the global average was 14.2%.

The telling bit is what Garrett-Cox is saying about the state of the stock market.

Her company - with £2.6 billion under management at the end of July - has moved back into equities in a big way, but it's not bullish about prospects.

With the half-year results comes a warning about over-confidence from stock market investors boosting valuations above the market fundamentals.

That's the defensive explanation for a big fall down industry rankings.

"This reflects our reluctance to commit aggressively shareholders' capital in a period of rapid, but in many cases narrowly-based recovery in equity markets," the Trust explained.

It says the stock market rally has been mainly in the shares that fell most over last winter:

"In some cases there has been no fundamental change to these companies and the increase in their share price is not necessarily reflective of any improvement in their underlying value".

As Garrett-Cox emphasises: "Our policy is to invest in companies and not share prices". And that seems to be the cause of her continuing caution.

Alliance Trust's analysis has been to boost its portfolio most in Asian stocks, which have duly performed best of any category.

And where it has backed stock in the UK markets, it is most impressed by those earning from Asian markets, such as HSBC and mining companies.

That's where it sees the best prospects for future growth, which tells its own story about the prospects for recovery.

This is a canny company, its results paying the price of being canny.

Placing big question marks over the sustainability of economic recovery, it's choosing to stay cautious.

The new player worth watching in Scottish finance is busy recruiting, and not just the 800 new posts Tesco Personal Finance is creating in Glasgow.

Chief executive Benny Higgins is advertising for five senior positions.

No surprises in the Payment Cards Director, Head of Personal Loans, Head of Motor Insurance Products and Head of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Insurance Products.

But what about his International Director?

"In this role, you'll operate on the global stage, exploring opportunities for further expansion and developing relationships with our banking partners".

This is not a bid for world domination from a company that's only been standalone for 10 months, I'm told.

TPF is already operating where Tesco does, and as the world's third (or arguably second) biggest retailer, it's got quite a footprint: Ireland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea.