Investors enjoyed strong returns over the month of March across most sectors, but the biggest surprise came from the NZ stock market which rose an astonishing 5.9% over the month.

It’s difficult to know how to describe the current strong run in equities – is it a “golden summer” which seems to stretch out longer than anyone would expect and just keeps going, or is it the “final throes” of a bull run that’s twitching before it comes to an end?

Of course, rarely in investments is such emotive language particularly helpful and we’d caution against any narrative which paints such pictures.

However, it probably does help identify some of the different views on equity markets at the moment.  Some will point to ongoing acceptable global market data, supportive monetary policy and stable earnings, whereas others will observe that we could have seen the tipping point in the rates cycle, US government bond yields inverting (i.e. you get lower returns from the long-dated bonds than short-dated bonds) and global growth slowing further and more rapidly.

Either way, it’s been a strong first quarter in 2019 with each of the diversified funds providing returns which exceeded our expectations for the whole year.