Viewpoint – March 2016

The market weakness seen in January continued into February with high levels of uncertainty and fear, notably affecting the financial sector and in particular European bank shares. However sentiment began to improve mid-month and markets have since recovered significantly; by month-end the MSCI World index was down by only 0.7% in the month, and is up over 9% from its 11 February low at the time of writing. Global emerging markets fell by just 0.2%.