During the recovery from February’s stock market correction, we wrote on these pages that the upsurge in equities – particularly in the US – felt a little uncomfortable. This was because the correction had not followed the usual pattern such corrections are known to follow, and therefore did not seem to provide a particularly solid base for a durable upturn. Sadly, our suspicion turned out to be justified.
After last week’s calming, the downdraft in equity markets returned with a vengeance this week. So much so that we even had to apply the latest regulatory reporting requirement, and write to investors in our highest risk portfolio style (Global Equity) to inform them that, over the course of Thursday, the value of their investments had at one point dipped to -10% below the value recorded at the beginning of the quarter.
