Happy New Year and welcome to another year of the Weekly Investment News.

Given it was a shortened period last week, we’ll revert to our usual format from next Monday. With that in mind we’ll take the opportunity to reflect on some key points from 2022, and outline what we hope to be able to bring you over the coming weeks and months.

2022 turned out to be one of the worst years on record for multi-asset investors. The classic 60/40 'portfolio in US dollar terms' saw the largest decline since records began, Eurozone government bonds saw their worst year since the currency bloc was incepted, and global equities in euro terms saw their worst year since 2008. There’s plenty of more examples, but in conclusion 2022 was unique for mostly the wrong reasons. As always, the headline figures are included in the below table.

With the benefit of hindsight, many of the reasons for the above are clear and have been well documented. However, I wonder who could have predicted that there was a war in Europe, but equities would outperform bonds. And that the world’s largest oil and gas supplier would start the war, but prices would be lower by the end of the year. The difficulty in not only identifying a material market event, but also the reaction to that event, highlights the importance of a defined investment process and philosophy.

As we look to the year ahead, we are just putting the finishing touches on our Investment Outlook, which will be presented at our Outlook Webinar next Tuesday 10^th January at 11am. You can register here. Our wider ‘Ignite’ Conferences will also take place in-person in the last week of January.

Finally, the purpose of this newsletter is to primarily inform you of the market movements and key points from the previous week’s trading. We have broadened our remit in recent years to (hopefully) include some wider investment points for client discussions and to provide the latest interpretation and thinking from Zurich, as market developments come thick and fast. Throughout 2023 we hope to continue to expand our offering and to interact with our readership more directly. With that in mind, we encourage you all to simply reply to these weekly mails with any questions, suggestions, or comments on market developments. For example, if there were any questions or topics for the team to cover at the Webinar next Tuesday please do get in touch.