The Market Call - Week Ending 18th April 2025

This week, Progressive's Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans consider the ongoing shocks to the global system - and wonder whether the UK (or UK plc at least) is unusually well positioned, as well as attractively priced. Although Trump's "shock and awe" has calmed this week, gold is rising, the dollar is falling and US government debt is highly volatile...it feels as though we've had "America's Brexit moment", a "global Liz Truss event" and now a re-run of Covid supply chain pressures - as we hear reports of ships halted in ports awaiting instruction, and markets can't tell whether current demand is real or stocking-up for an uncertain future. The UK has had more than its fair share of such volatility - and maybe we can manage it better. Micro-cap news from Progressive clients tinyBuild and Gear4Music shows that stocks delivering "not worsening" news, having cut their costs and adapted their models, can perform strongly - both up 20% at one point this week. The Easter weekend weather in the UK is forecast to disappoint - let's hope the UK's broader performance across the rest of the year reflects what we see as quite some potential.