Quarterly Podcast: Robust growth continues, but what does this mean for market froth and the spectre of inflation?

The first three months of the year have seen the continued recovery of national economies and markets, with much of the world now at more-or-less pre-crisis levels of GDP. While bonds have fared less well in recent months, and there are still lingering uncertainties around inflation and diverging recovery rates, we believe that fiscal policy will help mediate this inflationary risk, and that growth statistics do not tell the whole story about the current or future trajectory of different nations. The favourable stock market landscape has made for a strong quarter for our portfolios, bolstered by the continued rotation away from ‘growth’ to ‘value’ stocks and a better-than-expected performance by our diversifying assets, which usually drag in a period of rising equity markets.