{"id":1920,"date":"2020-04-01T10:07:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T10:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2020-11-18T10:54:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T10:54:19","slug":"market-update-1st-april-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/2020\/04\/01\/market-update-1st-april-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Market Update \u2013 1st April 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"vc_row wpb_row vc_row-fluid\">\n<div class=\"wpb_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-12\">\n<div class=\"vc_column-inner \">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"wpb_raw_code wpb_content_element wpb_raw_html\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d36jcR0d3Zs?rel=0&amp;wmode=transparent\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"vc_row wpb_row vc_row-fluid\">\n<div class=\"wpb_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-12\">\n<div class=\"vc_column-inner \">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"wpb_text_column wpb_content_element \">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<p>A miserable month (and first quarter of 2020) is thankfully finally over.\u00a0 Global equity markets had been relatively stable for the first seven weeks of the year, but that all changed towards the end of February when the coronavirus outbreak started to spread across the world and economies were effectively shut down wherever it appeared.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, many equity markets are now in \u2018bear\u2019 territory, meaning that they have fallen in excess of 20%.\u00a0 For example, on Wall Street, the Dow Jones is down 23.2% since the start of the year (its worst quarterly performance since 1987) and is down over 25% from its peak in February.<\/p>\n<p>In the UK, even though the FTSE-100 closed up 108 points yesterday, it ended the quarter down 24.8%.\u00a0 Furthermore, this hides many of the brutal individual constituent moves, which thankfully we mostly avoided, such as: Carnival which is down 73.07%; International Consolidated Airlines (the parent company of British Airways) down 65.58%; Melrose \u2013 61.89%; EasyJet \u2013 59.92%; Centrica (British Gas) \u2013 57.36%; ITV \u2013 56.28%; RBS \u2013 53.02%; and Rolls-Royce \u2013 50.15%.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the new month and quarter hasn\u2019t started much better.\u00a0 The FTSE-100 is, as we write, down another 210 points, or 3.7% after Donald Trump warned that a painful two weeks lie ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Adding to today\u2019s negativity is news that the UK banks have agreed with the regulator to suspend dividends and share buy-backs for 2020, coupled with UK PMI (Purchasing Managers\u2019 Index) data, which fell to a reading of 47.8 from 51.7.\u00a0 As we explained yesterday, 50 is the line separating expansion and contraction \u2013 so a reading below 50 signals the UK economy is contracting.\u00a0 Also the reading for new orders fell to 43.9 from 51.9 in February \u2013 its lowest reading since July 2012, which will undoubtedly impact employment and supply chains.<\/p>\n<p>While disappointing, for all intents and purposes this number is meaningless, as it simply confirms something that everybody already knew \u2013 i.e. that the UK economy has hit a brick wall thanks to the coronavirus lockdown and containment measures.<\/p>\n<p>As we have previously said, what is important is the fact that the lockdowns appear to be reducing coronavirus spread and related deaths.\u00a0 As such we should soon be at the economic trough and given the aggressive stimulus measures that governments and central banks have provided, we believe that global equity markets and the global economy will start to recover.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Investment Management Team<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n  <\/div> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A miserable month (and first quarter of 2020) is thankfully finally over.\u00a0 Global equity markets had been relatively stable for the first seven weeks of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2209,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions\/2209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}