Every day we seem to wake up to more bad news: the latest provocative tweet from Donald Trump; crises in the UK’s public services; populist outcry in any number of countries; and missile tests in North Korea, to name but a few regular headline-makers. And yet the rst half of 2017 has been another period of prosperity for investors, with equity markets making several new all-time highs and volatility remaining low – a classic case of what is described in nancial circles as “climbing a wall of worry”.

Investors have been worried about a lot of things for a long time. The Financial Crisis and the Eurozone Crisis are rmly imprinted on everyone’s minds, and it is human nature to fear a repeat performance. Political outcomes, not least the UK’s EU referendum result and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, reduced much conventional wisdom to rubble. The rise of populism in Europe threatened the integrity of the whole European project. But here lay the opportunity. When the worst outcomes fail to materialise, investors heave a sigh of relief and concentrate on the underlying health of economies and companies, and in this respect everything looks much rosier, at least on a global level. 

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