Allocation

The overall friendly environment on financial markets prevailed last week. While euro area macroeconomic data were on balance mixed, US data were slightly better than expected.

Technology stocks have continued to outpace broader equity markets in 2018. Together Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have a market cap value of $3.6 trillion and a net cash balance of just over $365bn. These quarterly earnings reports epitomise a virtuous circle of cash generation, investment and share gains - part of the technology sector fly wheel.

Do investors realize how good they’ve had it over the last 8+ years ? On the obvious side, the length and strength of the equity bull market has been well publicized. Since the March ’09 bottom, US equities are up over 300% (S&P 500®) while global equities are up over 200% (MSCI World).

Faced with low interest rates and relatively high valuations for risk assets, large global institutional investors are looking to protect themselves against downturn risks through maintaining their cash levels and selectively increasing allocations to active strategies, according to a new survey by BlackRock

How will extreme levels of monetary policy accommodation eventually be unwound? Are the reflationary, pro-growth elements of President Trump’s agenda alive or dead? When will a long forecasted increase in government bond yields materialise? What is the impact of a wildcard such as North Korea?