Disclaimer - Past Performance is NOT a Guarantee of Future Performance

Investing carries risk and uncertainty and investors can loose all of their money so should always seek professional advice before making any investment. This article is not investment advice and is provided for your education only.

1. Equities Outperformance

There are two key reasons for this investment thesis. First off the Key Economic Cycle indicators are not forecasting an imminent recession and secondly equities are showing better valuations than bonds.

2. Equities Geographic Focus

In 2017 equities strength came from a combination of very strong emerging market performance and also broader developed market equities, particularly the United States and Europe (excluding the UK), and Wealth Managers are expecting to see a similar pattern in 2018.

This is driven primarily from the top down macro economic view which supports certain regions more than others and secondly, taking a bottom up perspective examining particular favoured equity sectors including technology, financial and industrials.

Thirdly equities valuation, in particular Europe (Excluding the UK) and emerging markets provide good value.

3. Credit Markets Risk

Of course with the advent of rising rates and other headwinds facing the credit markets it might well appear that it is simply too late to seek out additional credit exposure, for example the yield spread above government bonds has tightened from a year ago in addition bond prices in the coming year are likely to get slightly lower, but having said that there is still a lot of demand for assets that have a yield, and it is because of these reasons that it could make sense to seek out high yielding bonds and emerging market credit.

2017 was in many ways quite a strong year for investors and it is worth taking a look at the 5 main investment themes that are attracting the attention of investment professionals in 2018.