Investors face a landscape in which neither government bonds nor cash offer positive returns. The former have no room to run as yields are already flirting with negative territory. Returns on the latter remains beaten down by historically low interest rates.

Meanwhile a plethora of government programmes (such as the European recovery programme mentioned above) offer strong support to the short-term troubles many companies are facing. This security suppresses some of the risk which would otherwise be associated with these assets.

This combination is driving investors to take risks they might ordinarily not in order to lock in some sort of meaningful returns. As such, corporate bonds and equities continue to push higher whilst gold offers a safe haven investment to protect against further downside risk.

As ever, looking for fairly priced, resilient businesses remains our focus. By investing in these companies, we are able to look beyond the hostile short-term environment, confident that these businesses can endure, therefore allowing us to focus on the far more prosperous long term prospects.

It’s fair to say that the Trump administration has done some serious toing and froing over the last few weeks and the message has not always been eitherconsistent or clear. However, even by their usual standards this is a memorable soundbite. The White House press secretary has revived President Trump’s calls for schools to reopen with the fantastic comment “the science shouldn’t stand in the way”. Echoing the president’s push for pupils to return to classrooms, Kayleigh McEnany said “we don’t think children should be locked up at home, with devastating consequences”. You may remember that back in April, Trump suggested injecting people with disinfectant to treat the virus. This is one man who won’t let a silly thing like science get in his way.

Source: news.sky.com