US

April was one of the most volatile months across financial markets in recent memory, triggered by President Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement on April 2.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published its first estimate for Q1 US GDP growth, which at -0.3% was slightly worse than the Bloomberg consensus of -0.2% on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), seasonally adjusted, annualised basis.

The AI boom has increased demand for data centers, but US electric utilities lack the capacity to power them. This has led to a rise in self-generation solutions, benefiting companies like Schneider Electric and National Grid. The issue was a key theme at the recent Data Center Dynamics trade show.

With a week currently feeling like a long time in geopolitics, the European sovereign crisis at the beginning of the last decade feels even more like a distant memory. The road to recovery for Europe’s periphery economies has been long and windy, but post-Covid it has been surprisingly smooth.

Last week was one of the most volatile on record. President Trump's announcement of a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs for every country bar China sparked one of the largest rallies in equity indices in recent history.

After a chaotic week in global markets following the tariffs announced by President Trump on April 2, at time of writing (April 10) investors are left to contemplate 125% tariffs on China, a baseline 10% on the rest of the world, 25% on auto imports and a 90-day pause on more punitive rates.

Uncertainty and volatility in today’s environment have highlighted the benefits of our disciplined Quality Growth philosophy, focused on proven businesses with inherent resilience and durability. Given the narrow tailwinds from the prior two years, select quality companies are attractively valued given their defensive growth characteristics.

“Liberation Day” has landed, and not with a whimper. In extraordinary scenes in the Rose Garden of the White House, President Trump held up a board outlining the level of tariffs the US will impose on countries around the world, and in most cases they were worse than worst-case expectations.

If we look at the main drivers of returns in Q1 2025, the first one that comes to mind is tariffs. But while this is true for equities and credit spreads, in the context of global fixed income the main driver of total returns in Q1 was the Bund sell-off triggered by a momentous shift in German fiscal policy.

Emerging market (EM) equities are more domestically driven than commonly assumed. Companies in the MSCI EM Index derive over 60% of revenues in their home markets. And they could further reduce their dependence on exports in the future. We illustrate the reasons.

Last week we wrote about a notable shift in market sentiment and how this had impacted our view of relative value within fixed income. So, where has the impact been felt, and has it changed our view on relative value?

Volatility in Bunds seems to have calmed down slightly in the last few days as markets continue to digest huge fiscal expansion plans from Germany and the European Union. At the same time, many forecasters have been downgrading their US growth projections after reassessing the level of pain President Trump seems willing to inflict on the US economy in order to implement his policy agenda.