Expected and unexpected turns of events May brought global multi asset class investors a welcome boost of their 2017 year to date returns. With reports of strongly growing corporate profits over the first quarter of the year, global investors appeared happy enough to abandon the ‘Trump Trade’ as the justification for their ‘risk-on’ attitude and… Read more »

End of globally synchronised growth upswing At the end of weeks like this, I tend to struggle with the prospect of writing about the economy and global investment opportunities. However, it is not the purpose of these pages to pass comment on what may have made our world as divisive and lacking in moral restraint… Read more »

Trump trade reversal – sign of things to come? It’s always the same. The moment you comment on an anomaly in the markets, it either ends or is significantly challenged. Last week, I wrote about the eerie calm in the stock markets. This week, Trump’s got himself into so much trouble with the opposition and… Read more »

Political volatility vs. market calm The sigh of relief could be felt across all media channels last Sunday evening, when it became clear that the polls had been correct and France had chosen the moderate Emmanuel Macron over ultra-right, nationalist Marine Le Pen. However, short term investors who had bet their money on this outcome… Read more »

Megaphone politics calming the stock markets? As we also learned during the week from the US  central bank’s April meeting statement and the latest employment figures, the Q1 economic deceleration is most likely just as transitory as it has been the previous two years. With unemployment dropping to just 4.4%, much additional economic stimulus from… Read more »