Imperium Capital Publication

Viewpoint – April 2019

Equity markets made further progress in March, despite a return to higher levels of volatility as concerns about the slowdown in global growth intensified. Developed market equities returned 1.3% over the month, taking the Q1 2019 return to 12.5% and recovering much of the ground lost in Q4 2018. US equities advanced 1.9%, supported by encouraging signs of progress in US-China trade talks and the increasingly accommodative stance of the Federal Reserve. In US dollar terms, Japanese equities underperformed the other major regions returning 0.6% while emerging markets returned 0.8%. Despite ongoing Brexit related uncertainty, the UK was a notable outperformer, up over 3% in sterling terms, with the UK’s big overseas earning companies boosted by weakness in the pound during the month.