NEWS, VIEWS & TRUTHS

NEWS, VIEWS & TRUTHS (23RD APR – 27TH APR)

Published on: April 27, 2018

It seems as spring has truly sprung this week as birds tweet gleefully across Lambton Park Estate; what a great time to be alive! And to add even more happiness to your week, please enjoy this week’s News, Views and Truths.

This week’s big news is the birth of the royal baby, the latest addition to the House of Windsor and fifth in line to the British throne. The second son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was born on Monday morning at one minute past 11, weighing 8lb 7oz. Now what will the name of the little chap be?

Three Counties are currently running a sweep on the names and up until today, bookmakers across the country were reporting a broad list of potentials. Until today…

Ok, literally as I wrote this it has been announced that the Prince will be named Louis Arthur Charles.

Anyway, markets have been their usual on/off self with the FTSE 100 leading the way with 0.82% at close of play yesterday, faring significantly better than their mid cap counterpart at -0.29%. The US once again offered positivity, with the S&P 500 returning 0.53%, although the European market and Japanese Nikkei 225 lost value at -0.16% and -0.17% respectively.

And now we are into the second quarter of the year, I feel that it is of value to highlight year to date market performance to certainly provide context and possibly illustrate and reinforce market expectations.

As close at 4 weeks ago, the FTSE 100 is looking by far the worst developed market performer, although this has since reversed with a 7.5% upswing in under one month. Overall, all developed markets are down between 100 and 200 basis points over the reporting period and again highlights the importance of deliberate and effective portfolio diversification. But the current trend is absolutely to the positive, backed up by consistently similar economic reports. That has to be a good thing.

Back to the baby theme, we have two new additions to the Three Counties family, although possibly not what you expect.

Lisa Godfrey has had a new addition to her household; Max the Shih Tzu Staffordshire Bull Terrier Cross.

And my own; Bonny the Chihuahua. I say mine, Mrs Alexander’s obviously…

Finally, how could I not create this week’s playlist on the theme of babies? Hope you enjoy and see you all next week.


Want to know more?