In reviewing the behaviour of markets in the first quarter we can use the prism of our Model Portfolios as well as the general benchmarks to try and capture the important elements of what happened, partly for review, but also hopefully for some forward looking insights and perspective.

As March ended and closed out the first quarter, it also marked the anniversary of the equity and Credit market lows triggered by the Great Covid Panic of 2020.

Normally on April 1st in the UK we would expect to see various spoof articles in the paper and on the TV, but on the basis that almost everything announced over the last 12 months might previously have been considered utterly unbelievable, it’s difficult to see how anyone could come up with something sufficiently ridiculous as to actually compete with what passes for real life in 2021.

We like to look for nominative determinism where we can find it, so to see that the over-leveraged US Hedge Fund that was forced to aggressively de-leverage on Friday was called ArchEgos was too good to miss.

We have noted on many occasions the seemingly unstoppable trend towards a ‘green’ takeover of the western economy consistent with a centralisation of the allocation of capital according to the UN sustainability agenda.