- Phillip Hammond was forced to scrap his plan to raise taxes on the self-employed, after pressure to axe the plan from Theresa May.
- According to EPFR Global, investors withdrew $5.7bn from high yield bonds, the biggest weekly outflow since 2014, as investor’s cited concerns of the impact of falling energy prices on companies in this sector. However the bid-ask spread on related ETFs remained stable.
- In what was the first of a series of elections across Europe this year, Dutch Prime Minister Matt Rutte saw off far-rightist Geert Wilders. On the back of this pro-European result the Euro strengthened against its main peers.
- The Federal Reserve raised their target rate by 0.25% to 1%. This led to a rise in global financial markets as investors saw this rate hike as a signal from the Fed of a strengthening US economy.
- On Tuesday 21 March we see the release of UK CPI YoY, with an expectation that this will increase from 1.8% to 2.0%.
- On Thursday 23 we will have the release of US Initial Jobless claims with expectations that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits will decrease from 241,000 to 240,000.
A score of -1.0 indicates an extremely poor economic outlook, which is accompanied by a high probability of negative returns in risky asset classes like equities. The Risk Barometer tilts our portfolios away from equities during such periods.
A score of 0 indicates a neutral economic outlook with almost equal probability of positive and negative returns in risky asset classes like equities. The Risk Barometer maintains a balance between equities and other asset classes during such periods.
A score of +1.0 indicates an extremely positive economic outlook, which is accompanied by a high probability of positive returns in risky asset classes like equities. The Risk Barometer tilts our portfolios towards equities during such periods.
*as at latest realignment 20/02/17
Notice:
The performance of each asset class is represented by certain Exchange Traded Funds available to UK investors and expressed in GBP terms selected by Copia Capital Management to represent that asset class, as reported at previous Thursday 4:30pm UK close. Reference to a particular asset class does not represent a recommendation to seek exposure to that asset class. This information is included for comparison purposes for the period stated, but is not an indicator of potential maximum loss for other periods or in the future.
