Analysis

"Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas" was the title of Edward Lorenz's talk in 1972 that helped bring aspects of chaos theory to a wider audience.

European markets were remarkably volatile during the first half of 2009, mainly due to the ongoing fall out from the global credit crunch.

Inflows into IMA Cautious Managed sector are returning as investors look to increase exposure to equities through lower-risk strategies

The Japanese market has benefited from the improvement in investor confidence we have seen in recent months, although the weakness of the yen this year has been a negative for sterling-based investors (a reversal of the picture in 2008).

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The UK stock market feels less volatile, and there are tangible signs of stabilisation and incremental improvement in the global economy.

Following a 70% rally from the lows of March, Asian equities' outperformance gap versus the rest of the world has widened even further, resulting in 31% outperformance for the first seven months of the year.

Following significant fiscal and monetary stimulus, optimism regarding a US economic recovery is building with the change in Q3 2009 GDP expected to be a positive 2.2% following a 1% decline in Q2 2009 and a worse 6.4% contraction in Q1.

When making asset allocation decisions, the temptation is always to opt for markets and funds that are performing well.

Japanese Smaller Companies sector makes gains of 25.4% over the last year