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Executive Summary  The third quarter of 2025 marked a robust rebound for global markets, as easing trade tensions, strong earnings, and AI enthusiasm pushed equities to all-time highs. US, [...]

Executive Summary  August 2025 was a strong month for equities, with global markets advancing in both USD and SGD terms. Solid corporate earnings, supportive policy signals, and improving [...]

Executive Summary  July was a fantastic month for stocks, reaching new highs supported by strong AI earnings, low inflation, and a weaker SGD boosting portfolios. Key indices including the [...]

Executive Summary  It has been a tumultuous first half of 2025, with many geopolitical and economic shocks that have begun to reorder the world. However, markets have demonstrated an underlying [...]

Executive Summary  The S&P 500 was up 6.3% in May 2025, one of the best months in history. The rally has been driven largely by tech and communication companies that are either selling [...]

Executive Summary  Stocks had a roller-coaster April and ended higher in USD terms. However, due to the weakness of the USD, returns in SGD turned negative. Foreign exchange (FX) volatility is a [...]

Note: This market review was penned on 7 April 2025. As of 10 April 2025, markets have risen by approximately 10%. However, given the ongoing volatility and uncertainty, we believe the [...]

Executive Summary  February was a challenging month for US stocks, as the uncertainty around how tariffs would affect businesses saw the S&P 500 pull back from its all-time high in the middle [...]

Executive Summary  January was a good month for stocks and bonds; however, stock markets are facing greater uncertainty as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) capex trade that has powered markets [...]

Executive Summary  Providend portfolios have done well over the past four-year period, with 2024 capping off yet another strong year for equities with double-digit returns. While the portfolios [...]

Given the headlines in early and mid-March, one might be forgiven for thinking that it would be a terrible month for markets as banks seemed to be collapsing and some Credit Suisse bondholders [...]

October and the start of November have been great months to be invested, as markets have made up ground on the losses for the year. Undoubtedly, the recovery is not complete, and the outlook [...]

We thought that it would be a good time to take the chance to share with you some of the common questions we have been receiving in the past months and use this opportunity to share our responses [...]

Stock markets experienced their worst 1-day drop since the Covid pandemic in June 2020 on the news that inflation in the US rose in August. Against most expectations looking for a fall in oil [...]

The past week saw the NASDAQ index rally 20% from its recent low in mid-June, leading to new headlines discussing the emergence of a new bull market for the NASDAQ stocks. New bull market? First, [...]

April was an extremely difficult month for stocks and bonds. The S&P 500 fell 8.8% in April, its worst month since March 2020, while our reference index, the MSCI AC World IMI did better, [...]

For the first quarter of 2022, investors have been plagued with news of high inflation, war, and rate hikes. Global market reacted to the news and had the worst performance since the global [...]

The start of 2022 has not been kind to the stock market as it continues to show negative returns in February. Temperamental market swings caused by rising inflation and upcoming rate hikes were [...]

January turned out to be one of the more volatile periods in the stock and bond markets in recent history. We saw 1000 point intraday swings in the Dow, 10-year treasury yields shooting sharply [...]

December capped a fantastic run for stocks in 2021, with some major gains for developed world stocks and a recovery for emerging markets. Bonds unfortunately fell again as fixed income markets [...]

November turned out to be a month of 2 halves, as stocks rose to records in mid-November as optimism over the economic recovery continued, but as news of the new Omicron variant started to emerge [...]

We do our best to emphasise to clients that returns are unpredictable and that one should not react to short-term news, but instead focus on the wealth plan and stay invested to capture the [...]

Not all stocks behave the same way September has provided some different headlines other than “stock markets set a new record high”, as stocks and bonds fell for the month, and US stocks in [...]

Developed world stocks continued to rise in August, and Emerging Market stocks rebounded after a tumble in July. Bonds fell as yields ticked up after Fed chairman Jerome Powell comments at the [...]

July looks a little like a tale of 2 regions, with Global equities continuing their slow and steady climb to new records, while EM stocks had a tumble as changing regulations around Chinese [...]

The summer months are typically a little less exciting in the markets as liquidity dries up. However, the lower liquidity can make for more volatile trading as market participants find it harder [...]

Should you sell in May? If you were reading the financial news headlines in May, you can be forgiven for thinking that it was not a very exciting month in the stock market as the S&P 500 rose [...]

April turned out to be yet another fantastic month to be invested in stocks, as stock market returns continued to be strong. One difference for the performance in the month was that value and [...]

The first quarter of 2021 ended well for our portfolios as value stocks and small stocks continued to outperform as the economic backdrop improved and major economies continue to re-open as the [...]

If you have been reading the financial news headlines you would think that stock markets had a terrible time in February. The headlines were not wrong as the typical barometers for stock market [...]