The first quarter of 2019 was distinctly different, and much improved, from the final quarter of last year.  Stock markets which had slumped badly recovered just as quickly, erasing the losses of late-2018 within a few months.

This giant of economic thinking wrote the following in his book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in 1919, a year after the end of WWI: ‘If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing consequences of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing.’

Skill, talent and ability. These define an aptitude for a task or challenge; in the context of investing, however, one should add ‘insights’ and‘research’ as components of successful outcomes in the complex environment of markets.