Despite a mid-month wobble in the US equity market, it was another benign month overall for equity markets and most risk assets made further upward progress, continuing the pattern of performance since Trump’s election success. Volatility remained remarkably low, and equities again outperformed bonds. The most notable moves included a change in leadership within equity markets, with Europe meaningfully outperforming the US, credit marginally outperforming sovereign bonds (which posted flat or negative returns), and a renewed slide in the US dollar against most currencies, leaving its trade weighted index down by 1.8% year-to-date. Despite further evidence of strengthening global growth, commodity markets were generally weak, notably the price of WTI oil declined by 6.3% over the month. A combination of accelerating growth and a weaker dollar helped emerging markets to another strong month, leaving them as the best performing equity market year-to-date (posting a total return of 11.4%).

The broad pattern of market performance since Trump’s election victory continued in February in a period notable for its particularly low volatility, with the Vix ‘fear’ index now at its lowest levels since the financial crisis. Equities, led by the US, significantly outperformed bonds again; global developed equities returned 2.8% in February compared with a return of 0.4% from global bonds, taking the year-to-date outperformance of equities to 3.9%.
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The early weeks of 2017 in financial markets have been a sharp contrast to the same period in 2016, when markets fell sharply on fears about China’s slowdown and currency weakness. This year markets have continued their post-election pattern, rising on expectations of ‘Trumpflation’, and higher growth and corporate profits. Equities, again led by the US, have continued to outperform bonds, with the MSCI World index up 2.4% in January while global government bonds were up 0.9%. However, it was notable that global emerging markets, which underperformed markedly in the aftermath of the election amidst fears of trade protectionism and a strong dollar, recovered strongly, with the MSCI Global Emerging Markets index up 5.5% for the month, helped by currency gains and strong rises in Asian and Latin American markets.
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A year that witnessed political power ebb away from centrist politics and towards fringe populism and nationalistic ideologies culminated in the election of Donald Trump – the Republican Party’s far-right, nationalistic, anti-trade and immigration, property mogul nominee. His triumph over Democrat Hilary Clinton, who many saw as the encapsulation of the political establishment, reflected the electorate’s disenchantment with such politicians and the inequality that has resulted from their pro-trade and immigration policies of the past decade.
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Throughout October, all eyes were on the build-up to the US election. Markets broadly followed the ebbs and flows of each candidate’s campaign momentum. As such the announcement that the FBI was to re- open its investigation into then candidate Hillary Clinton’s email account led to a wave of risk adverseness and portfolio hedging throughout global markets. The S&P 500 index lost 1.9% over the month, whilst European stocks lost 1.0%.
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The modest returns seen in the majority of markets over the month masked some sharp moves over the same period. In most cases these were triggered once again by central bank policy decisions, as well as moves by OPEC and Russia to curb oil production.
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August proved to be a particularly quiet month for markets, with low levels of volatility across equities and bonds, and little by way of significant news flow. Overall the ‘risk on’ environment of July, post the UK Brexit referendum, broadly continued in August: most equity markets rose modestly higher, with emerging markets leading the way and adding 2.5% in the month.
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Fortunately, the Brexit vote proved to be anything but the globally systemic shock that many had predicted. Within weeks most equity markets had recovered all and more of their immediate post-referendum falls as it became clear that the only lasting impact on markets globally was to delay any prospect of monetary tightening into the long distant future.
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Events in June, prior to the UK’s EU referendum on the 23rd, became somewhat irrelevant following the shock result. The market reaction was instant and dramatic, with sharp falls in sterling, global stock markets, government bond yields (especially those in the UK) and a flight to safe haven assets such as gold.
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By far the most significant development in the month was the change in expectations for a US Federal Reserve (Fed) interest rate hike in 2016. During May the probability of a rate rise for the June and July meetings increased from 12.0% and 26.1% at the start of the month to 24.0% and 52.9% at month end.
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