Are we at the end of the Great British Sell-Off?

'Circuit breaker' needed

One of my favourite movie lines is from Annie Hall: “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”

Given how horrible the rout in UK equity, bond and currency markets was last week, investors could be forgiven for feeling nostalgic about the past few years of weakness. The relative cheapness of UK equity markets has been an oft-visited theme for much of the past six years. Similarly, over any longer-range timeframe, sterling has looked attractive from a purchasing power parity basis. Until this year only bond markets were the exception. This has clearly changed - which explains why, as prices have adjusted, portfolios holding bonds to guard against capital losses have experienced the ...