The team added exposure to the Lightman European fund during the first quarter of this year.

Since the start of a year, higher inflation, changing central bank rhetoric, the Ukraine war and headwinds to growth and spending have caused markets to price in greater volatility.

Infrastructure continues to be a significant allocation within all our portfolios.

The investment team recently met with the managers of the Franklin Clearbridge Infrastructure Income fund to discuss the recent performance of the fund and the long-term opportunities within the infrastructure asset class.

The Lightman fund is an all-cap Europe ex UK strategy that invests with a strict valuation process, meaning that the fund tilts towards being more value orientated.

The US Federal Reserve are meeting later today for their next open committee meeting, and it seems that they will be enacting a 25-bps interest hike, which will take the US base rate to 0.25-0.5% from 0- 0.25%.

Chinese stock markets rallied today on the news that state authorities have pledged to keep the markets stable and continue to support overseas stock listings for companies.

While we cannot predict upcoming military and political developments, or how far the current conflict will escalate, what we can try to assess is the impact on growth and the subsequent market implications.

What started out as Russia’s usual troubles with its neighbour has quickly intensified into a political risk event for markets.

It is well known, and has been discussed, that value stocks have been underperforming growth stocks for 13 years.