April 2025 – balmy weather, barmy markets

Better late than never, I’m doing a quick update on April. More for the record than because anything particularly notable happened in the portfolio, ignoring the mid month gyrations.

It was a lovely month, April. I did a bit of travelling, but the UK had generally lovely spring weather – as the photos illustrate. I find a consequence of having both the Dream Home in London, and the Coastal Folly is that when the weather is lovely I can really begrudge being in London – a relatively new feeling for me I must admit.

How did a non-London city picture get into this blog?

As I write this, it’s almost the end of May, so rambling around April market performance doesn’t feel like it’s going to be of much interest to anybody. In fact with a week of May to go, the S&P has recovered from the Trump TariFFS episode. The key point is that Trump announced a u turn / 90 day pause in his tariff plan, which the markets took as a reason to return to normal. Go figure. Since when has Very Bad News in 90 days’ time been discounted away to practically zero?

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Mar ’25: Anticipating tariffs

What’s in the news?

Talking about the news in March, given what’s been happing on the tariff front over the last few weeks, seems a bit pointless.

We entered March with a lot of drama about Ukraine, and some notable ‘ceasefire’ activity on the diplomatic front.

We finished March waiting for ‘liberation day’, April 2nd, when Trump unleashed a basically bonkers cocktail of tariffs on every country in the world – except Russia, of course.

What’s going on with me?

In the meantime, life goes on.

I attended a funeral of a long time friend and neighbour in north London.

I visited a rather bizarre concert in the Royal Festival Hall.

And I visited hospital for my first MRI scan, participating in a clinical research programme at University College London Hospital. I was impressed, I have to say, and grateful that I live within relatively easy reach of this excellent hospital.

I also visited Dorset – Studland to be precise – and went yomping up to Old Harry Rocks, the start of the Jurassic Coast. It’s a beautiful part of the world, and less than 3 hours from London Waterloo.

Markets in March

My markets’ movements in March 2025

Markets generally drooped in March, particularly the US’s S&P500. Enthusiasm/animal spirits from Trump’s election win are being replaced by trepidation / concern about Trump not being good for the US economy after all. The dollar, and the AUD, fell against the pound.

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Nov ’24: 3x

London life

I’ve been keeping busy as winter in London sets in. The Christmas lights are all out and looking resplendent, and both the West End and the City are feeling pretty buzzy. For all the general ‘UK stuck in the weeds’ economic commentary, we feel a long way from any talk of recession.

A political month

It’s been a good month for the right wing.

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