Overview
Investors in assets of all types will have been well satisfied
with the returns they achieved on their investments during Q1.
Indeed, all the developed equity markets showed strongly although a
few emerging markets did post negative returns. The corporate and
high yield bond markets were relatively flat and whilst we did see
a slight sell-off in the Government bond markets, this was reversed
when news of the Cyprus bailout conditions were announced prompting
a "flight to safety".
By and large, commodities tracked sideways, as did most of the
commercial property markets, which, once again, saw prime locations
outperforming their more secondary counterparts.
The economic news has shown the US continuing to recover, albeit
at a rather lacklustre pace, whilst the corner appears to have been
turned in China. Europe is a definite laggard, where it became
clear that the Euro's problems are far from being fully
resolved and, despite George Osborne's
