Welcome to the 25th edition of Perspectives.

After a strong first quarter, risk assets continued their rally in April on the back of accommodative central banks, the expectation of a recovery in Chinese growth, and a solid start to the Q1 US earnings season. Equity markets climbed across the regions, while high-yield spreads narrowed further. But at the time of our writing, volatility is making a comeback on renewed trade tensions.

In this publication, we first discuss if the “everything” rally is coming to an end – in other words, should investors “sell the Trade war in May and go away”? Seasonality and other stock market cycles are the topics of the Behavioral Finance section. Based on the analysis of various cycle patterns, it seems that US equities might have further to go in 2019.

The “Hot topic” of the month is the dollar which remains in the midst of a prolonged period of strength against the vast majority of global currencies. We highlight some of the reasons to be cautious about the dollar and why its fate is likely to shape financial markets in 2019.

In the last part of this publication, we look at the opportunities and challenges in Morocco, which is part of our universe within the Middle East and North African equities. While the majority of the best growth stories do not match our strict liquidity requirement, we continue to monitor Morocco very closely as we consider this market as a source of alpha opportunities once valuations would become more attractive.

We hope you will enjoy this issue.