12 themes that shaped 2011

We look at key themes and events that have impacted investment over the past year.

No-one can dispute 2011 has been an eventful year for financial markets, and even the most hardened bottom-up stockpickers have had to rethink the influence of top-down macro events on their portfolios. Against a backdrop of the eurozone debt crisis, the survival of the euro hanging in the balance, a devastating Japanese earthquake and whipsawing shares and commodity prices, it has been a challenging year for investors. Meanwhile the asset management space has seen clampdowns on certain types of investment, the threat of a bigger regulatory challenge than RDR, and a wave of takeover a...