GDP

Back in 1994, amidst an ongoing fiscal crisis in Sweden and a ferocious bear market in government bonds, Christer Käck, at Skandia, was the biggest bond player in domestic Swedish bonds.

Sparks and Dickstein expect US Fed to keep holding asset class in short term

Ecclesiastical's Robin Hepworth has warned Western equity markets could fall as much as 10% when central banks finally act to tackle inflation.

The pound has risen against the euro after UK GDP growth was reported as -0.5% in Q4 2010, slightly ahead of previous estimates of -0.6%.

ON SPECIALIST MARKETS

LGIM's Richard Hodges believes the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) would be "lunatics" to raise interest rates in May as it will put the UK at risk of a double-dip recession.

GDP figures for Q4 2010 have been revised up to 3.1% from the 2.8% forecast last month, helped by a rise in consumer spending and businesses restocking their inventories.

Irish economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2010, shrinking 1.6% on the back of poor consumer spending, exports and investment.

Markets are starting to question whether the prospect of robust - albeit unevenly distributed - growth will be disrupted by rising inflation and increasing geo-political risk.

At this stage, it remains impossible to really judge confidently the scale of the damage from the earthquake in Japan and the tsunami that followed.