June delivered generally positive economic news globally as well as good news on the whole in terms of COVID cases and vaccine rollouts. A notable exception was, however, a large uptick in cases in the UK due to the delta variant which delayed the final step of economic reopening. In the US, there were hints of sooner-than-expected interest rate rises which helped to settle longer-term inflation concerns and contributed to a pick-up in the performance of ‘Growth’ stocks, especially the larger ones, relative to ‘Value’ companies – partially reversing the trend evident earlier this year. Oil prices continued to rise, increasing 10% in June – they are now up over 50% year to date.

GLOBAL ASSET CLASS DETAILS