Last year was challenging for Japanese equities.
Debt has become the opioid crisis of the global economy.
There is something strange going on in Europe according to some commentators - the market has rallied aggressively post the trade war-induced sell-off in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Bond investors spent most of last year transitioning towards a more fundamentally driven approach to selecting assets.
We expect to see continued market volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty in the UK throughout 2019, not least due to Brexit.
US stocks had a turbulent last quarter in 2018 and have been somewhat volatile since the start of this year.
While we are stock-pickers, we do not ignore the business cycle; analysing it helps us determine when to allocate capital to certain companies.
Last month the US yield curve inverted, with the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds dipping beneath the yield on 3-month Treasury bills.