Earnings continue, with a host of household names reporting this week. Once again though, it may be difficult to draw any concrete conclusions from both the Q1 figures or the forward guidance as there is an expectation of a further flurry of downgrades. Politically, just as we see Government forming negotiations locally gathering pace, Brexit is beginning to creep back into the headlines, and the U.S. Presidential election is moving back into the limelight.

As mentioned in the weekly investment news available in full below, Oil went to a scarcely believable negative price late Monday evening. Transport and storage costs briefly outweighed the economic value of the commodity and investors were unable to ‘roll over’ futures contracts. This occurred in the ‘WTI’ (West Texas Intermediate) market, rather than the U.K. based ‘Brent’ market, which trade at different price levels at all times given the different market dynamics. What does it mean for equities? It has accentuated some of the sector dispersion that was already evident in markets, for example energy stocks have underperformed the healthcare and technology sectors by around 40% so far this year. CLICK HERE