Year-to-date outcomes continue to look poor across many asset classes as markets have responded to unexpectedly high inflation; central banks’ monetary policy tightening response to it; ongoing pandemic-related production disruptions including staff away ill and China’s lockdowns; and the manifold impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which have included trade sanctions, spikes in commodity and energy prices, and heightened investor risk aversion.

Investment markets continue to face difficult conditions: Bonds and equities, both at home and overseas, have suffered significant declines, and there have been few places to shelter outside of cash, commodities, gold, and listed infrastructure.

Investment markets have continued to struggle. Year to date, global and domestic bonds, and global and domestic equities, have all gone backward. Returns from cash in the bank are slowly improving, global listed infrastructure has been a rare example of capital preservation. And investors have suffered portfolio losses.

The global economic outlook has become more difficult. Inflation has proved to be a bigger problem than expected, and financial markets are now more concerned that central banks, in their efforts to bring inflation down, may raise interest rates to the point where they choke off the post-coronavirus cyclical recovery of the global economy (excluding China, where lockdowns have been slowing its economy).