We’ve had some detail from China this week on plans in place to loosen the lockdowns in Shanghai: shops will begin to open this week, further restrictions will ease towards the end of the week, public transport will start back up and further normality will return from 1st June.

The big news to start the week was the result of the French Presidential run-off election on Sunday. Sitting President Emanuel Macron held off his far-right opposition leader, Marine Le Pen

It has been a quiet week, with few market moving headlines, which isn’t a bad thing after a tumultuous month. Markets have now largely made up lost ground after the chasm created in the last 5 weeks.

There were peace talks between Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday, that made the “most significant progress” that we have seen since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February – Russia will drastically scale down military operations around Kyiv, and Ukraine said they were willing to adopt a neutral status.

The Spring Statement has increasingly become an irrelevance: not only are they light on any meaningful new policies, they have increasingly become updates simply filled with partisan rhetoric and jokes at the expense of the party in opposition.

In China this week, we saw the release of retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment all come in significantly above economists’ expectations.

Not so long ago, it was hard to see past a time when the Covid-19 pandemic drove headlines, drove markets, and drove our day-to-day interactions.

The situation in Ukraine has continued to be the focus of markets, news headlines and, of course, our thoughts.

The dominating news story this week is the unfolding situation in Ukraine.

The main mover of markets this week has been fears mounting over a Russian attack on Ukraine.