It was a week that felt all too familiar as another French prime minister resigned (before subsequently returning) and US stocks fell sharply following another tariff announcement.

Global equities posted marginal gains in EUR terms last week. This was despite a few market jitters in the US after Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments that “by many measures…equity prices are fairly highly valued”, which prevented major indices from setting their fourth record in a row on Tuesday. 

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve decided to reduce interest rates by 25bps, the first cut in nine months.

Last month brought solid returns across major asset classes. The second-quarter earnings season continued, with Nvidia standing out for exceeding sales and earnings expectations.

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.

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.