Later this week, the international financial services group, Almalia, will launch the world’s first active global equity Shariah compliant ETF. The Almalia Sanlam Active Shariah Global Equity UCITS ETF (the ETF) will launch via the HANetf platform and will list on the London Stock Exchange later this week.

President Trump has made multiple headlines this week, firstly on Sunday after the New York Times reported that the president paid $750 of income tax in both 2016 and 2017. The first presidential debate ahead of the November US election then descended into childish bickering and finally, confirmation came last night that the President and First Lady have both tested positive for Coronavirus.

Equity prices have recovered from the lows in March – a remarkable comeback amid so much uncertainty. But high valuations mean less opportunity for future returns and more risk for investors, so where do we go from here?

This week has heralded a significant change in tone for markets. After months of outperformance by tech stocks such as Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, the
tides changed this week and many investors found themselves wrong-footed by the switch in sentiment. With Pfizer’s vaccine news providing a glimmer of
hope for a return to normality, cyclical stocks in industries such as travel, banking and hospitality staged a significant rally.

The stratification between the real economy and the stock market continued this week as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of thirty large US companies, reached a record high of 30,000 points. Donald Trump was quick to laud the stock market’s performance as being the result of his economic genius, a welcome break from claiming election fraud, no doubt.

The decision to reinstate a two-week quarantine on travellers returning to the UK from Spain was made this week as the infection rate in the region is running at three times the rate in the UK. As next week sees the start of discounted eating out throughout the country, it appears that holiday goers to the Canary Islands can also snap up the bargain of four weeks of holiday for the price of two! Or at least we think that’s how it works