April 2018 – The global economic environment may be exhibiting growth, but the economic data coming out of Europe are now less robust. Protectionist risks are on the rise, with the potential to impact Europe's export- oriented equity markets. Both the DAX and the EURO STOXX 50 have broken their uptrends from 2016. A more cautious investment policy stance with a rather lower equity weighting now appears sensible. Gold and bonds serve as good portfolio diversification against a backdrop of equity market turbulence. Diversification across various asset classes/focus modules will remain very important in 2018.

April 2018 – The financial markets are under the spell of new geopolitical tensions. These have been triggered by a more hard-line policy on the part of the US re- acting to practices of Russia and China that it is no longer prepared to tolerate. In the medium term, equity markets are driven more by earnings and economic growth than by political events. In temporary phases of geopolitical uncertainty, bonds have historically performed well, while commodities such as gold have typically acted as a safe haven. Thus, bond and commodity modules are key components to hold as part of a complete portfolio.

February 2018 – Investing in times of falling volatility is always dangerous The first few weeks of the new year began strongly for the markets – too strongly, as it turned out. After global equity markets performed unusually well from a historical perspective in January, recording a rise of around 5%, a clear consolidation (i.e. correction) has now taken place. However, this latter development should be viewed against a backdrop of long-term market gains in which no real market consolidation took place at all.