Markets moved higher once again last week, and the United States (US) market has now notched 11 new highs in the last 30 days.

There were further developments on the tariff front last week, and this had an impact on markets.

Monday resembled ‘Liberation Day 2.0’ last week. US President Donald Trump pushed the 9th of July deadline for tariff pauses back to 1st August, while also adding a slew of new tariffs to go into effect on that date. 

Last month global equities showed impressive resilience, recovering some of the ground lost earlier in the year in local currency terms.

In May, markets continued their recovery from April’s lows as consumer sentiment improved and trade tensions eased.

In April, markets were highly volatile, largely due to US President Trump’s Liberation Day announcement regarding global trade tariffs, which caused steep declines worldwide early in the month.

The Zurich Investment Outlook is produced twice yearly by the team at Zurich Investments, based in Dublin, Ireland. This publication provides an in-depth insight into our current thinking and positioning, and expands on the reasons behind our economic views to our clients and customers.

As we enter 2025, we look to maintain perspective and to balance the risks across respective asset classes.

As we enter 2024, we have a broadly balanced asset allocation stance, namely a neutral weighting in equities and a much-increased weighting in bonds. This follows a steady reduction in equity exposure throughout the last quarter of 2023.