Risk assets have seen a broadly positive start to 2021, and while we acknowledge that it has not been a simple and straight forward ride higher for markets, we do note that the S&P500’s ‘VIX volatility index’ at the beginning of April has traded through its lowest price since before the initial pandemic-led equity sell-off.
We believe market participants are fully looking through the pandemic at this point and towards a brighter future. The middle of March marked the one-year anniversary of the transition to the world with Covid-19, a theme that has dominated our investment updates and indeed markets as a whole. This time last year, having just entered our first lockdown in Ireland, very few of us could have predicted the extent of the social, emotional, and economic impact the virus would bring. Fast forward to April 2021, we are in a world with significantly less uncertainty on the virus front, and have essentially witnessed a whole market cycle within a very short and surreal period of time over the past 12+ months. Importantly, there is a definite end in sight, and we are undoubtedly finally starting to see evidence that the economic needle is moving in the right direction.
