Yesterday saw the worst death toll in the UK with 87 confirmed dead by Coronavirus and the first day of lockdown. We have closed the office except for post opening and scanning. As I said yesterday, the phones and emails will be answered remotely by the staff at MPA who have all been fantastic!

Bounceback

Amid all this gloom the UK stockmarket rallied by its second biggest rise and went up an incredible 9.05%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average in the US had its best day in 90 years and increased by 11.37%.

The Risk 5 portfolios we use bounced back 3% and the risk 7 which is effectively 100% global equity bounced back 5%.

I am not saying that this is the recovery but it was some positivity after the sharp falls we have seen this last 3 weeks. Maybe 5000 on the FTSE 100 is a temporary floor and I would expect some profit taking today. What we saw in 2008 was that the FTSE 100 bounced around various points on the chart for a while before going up or down. Im not saying this is the bottom of the market by any means but the measures taken by the Govt are maybe calming the market. UK is certainly oversold and is certainly cheap, but will it get cheaper?

This is a chart today of the Vanguard Lifestrategy portfolios which are a risk rating of 3,5 and 7. The risk rating 7 in red has 100% equity investments and bounced back 5% yesterday but is still -20% on the year. The 20% equity portfolio is only down -3.72% year to date.

Lets see what happens in the markets today.

Anyway, the sun is shining, I am about to open the post and get back home, so have a good day and stay safe and healthy.

Phil J McGovern FPFS