Q1 2024 Investment Review & Outlook.

The Bull Run Continues…..

Q1 2024 closed out with the best first quarter for global markets in 5 years. This Q1 Investment Review & Outlook outlines how the period was dominated by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) growth theme. Undoubtedly, AI is a key driver of the continuation of the bull run in equities.

Notably, markets began the year expecting roughly seven rate cuts for 2024. Throughout the quarter, that pendulum swung back to three cuts amidst a backdrop of improving economic growth and slowing disinflation.

The Q1 Investment Review & Outlook describes how the AI boom has fuelled the market’s gains. Evidenced by chip designer Nvidia, which has added more than $1tn in market value during the first three months of the year. That is equivalent to about one-fifth of the total gain for global stock markets in Q1.

The MSCI index of worldwide stocks has gained 7.7 per cent this year, the most since 2019. With stocks outperforming bonds by the biggest margin in any quarter since 2020, even as traders scale back their expectations for rapid interest rate cuts. Certainly the charge has been helped by the S&P 500, which has closed at a record high on 22 separate occasions during the quarter. What began as a tech-driven rally on Wall Street gradually broadened out across the quarter. Equities in Europe and Japan beginning to outpace the US. The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s Dax, France’s CAC 40 and Spain’s Ibex 35 all outperformed the S&P 500 in March. At that stage, the breakneck pace of Wall Street’s rally began to ease while global indices — and sectors beyond technology — caught up with earlier AI-driven gains in the US.

You can read the full report in the pdf below or you can Download Here

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