What a difference a few months makes for asset allocators and top down portfolio strategies! Last summer the world was convinced there was only one asset class to own, Bonds! In July’16, a Bond investor was paying the equivalent of 0.5% to Germany for holding their money for five years! By August 2016, around two-thirds of the broader Bond markets was in negative yielding territory. In October’16, the Italian government issued its first sale...

“Get me into a Trump portfolio” are the chants being heard from clients across all annual wealth management meetings as they seem to have missed the 8%-12% rally in Developed Markets from the lows reached in November. Most media commentators use the Donald Trump nomination as a reason for the swift rally across markets. Amusing as that might be, certainly makes watching “fake” news much more entertaining, one needs to...

On the surface, taking a birds eye view of markets, a dormant investor could be forgiven for thinking 2016 has been a very boring year as broader level market indices are mixed across the board. Year to date the S&P 500 is up 7.5%, Eurostoxx 50 down 7%, FTSE up 8.5%, and Emerging Markets up 10.8%. Nothing really to write home about. But boring is an understatement to describe a year that will never be forgotten or when written about, be...