Future looks brighter for troubled BP

Elissa Bayer of Charles Stanley gives her top tips for stock selection during a testing time for markets

The first quarter of 2011 turned out to be quite different from how we might have expected. Having got over the snow, most thoughts returned to the economic malaise, a possible rise in interest rates and world inflation – all the usual suspects. There was then a prolonged sit-in in Cairo and the eventual dismissal of President Mubarak, and this led to a wave of unrest in the Middle East from Yemen to Bahrain and from Syria to Libya, with scenes of political unrest that are still going on. Combined with the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, markets naturally moved downwards, with Japan and...