•  
• Tweet
•  
•        Print
•  
•         Track Keywords
•  
• 

By Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London:

Global hedge fund research and investment specialist Financial Risk Management (FRM) has produced its market summary for January 2012 and its outlook for the rest of the year. Over January, FRM reveals that there was a broad-based rally in equity markets with small caps outperforming large caps and growth stocks rallying more than value stocks.

Among global equities, emerging market equities produced particularly strong gains, reversing some of the losses from last year. There were less exciting returns on Government bond markets as risk sentiment turned more positive through the month. The report says: "The US yield curve flattened and 10 year bond yields fell following the dovish statements from the Fed regarding keeping rates low".

In terms of commodity performance, FRM found it mixed with precious metals rallying strongly, particularly gold and copper which rallied by 10% each and silver prices increasing by 19.2%. "Oil prices continued to be volatile as EU and US imposed sanctions on Iran troubled supply dynamics; the brent- WTI spread widened through the month as brent rallied by 3.4% and WTI fell by 0.4%".

The credit markets were buoyant in January with the ML HY Master II Index posting a gain of 2.9%. FRM says: "The market rally was aided by the short squeeze during the month and the flurry of high yield new iss......................

To view our full article Click here