Our Investment Committee Update

We are not superstitious but what an extraordinary week to end on Friday the 13th. However, after the turmoil of the previous days there were signs yesterday morning that the markets have begun to regain some composure.

The rapid spread of Coronavirus has highlighted the vulnerability of our globally integrated economies to a modern pandemic. We probably have to go back to the Spanish ‘flu that swept the world at the end of the First World War for anything similar. Stock markets do not cope well with uncertainty, and we have had uncertainty on a an unprecedented scale since the beginning of the pandemic. Perversely, the more aggressive the actions of the Central Banks and Governments have been, the worse markets have responded. It is as if they have decided there must be more bad news we are not being told.

However, not all the business sectors have been affected to the same extent. Those which have suffered the most are, as you would expect, in the travel, tourism and leisure sectors and about to