Following a volatile but generally profitable first three quarters of the year, the majority of markets delivered further gains over the final three months of 2025.
International share markets provided the strongest gains, with the New Zealand and Australian share markets taking a back seat over the quarter. Similarly, with global interest rates having receded from their post-Covid peaks, returns from fixed income assets delivered in line with expectations – moderately positive.
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Key market movements for the quarter
Shares and bonds across the board were under pressure in the second quarter of 2022, as markets priced in further increases in interest rates as well as an increased risk of recession. Amongst equities returns, which were generally poor, the MSCI World Value index significantly outperformed its Growth counterpart, although both registered double-digit declines.
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Whether you own a TV or radio, read a newspaper, or get your news online, it’s a fairly safe bet that the bulk of the economic news you are receiving at the moment sounds fairly gloomy.
Even if we could ignore the news, which is often more noisy than informative, we can’t easily ignore that the price of food, petrol and many other essential goods have been rising sharply in recent months, putting pressure on household budgets.
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Key market movements for the quarter
With the prospect of US interest rate hikes and simmering tensions at the Russia/Ukraine border, there were few places for investors to hide in January, as bond yields spiked and share markets waned. Growth-tilted sectors such as information technology and consumer discretionary bore the brunt of the pain, while the energy sector generally performed strongly.
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Headlines were dominated by the horrific war in Ukraine and the terrible humanitarian crisis continuing to unfold there. In pursuing this conflict, Vladimir Putin has surely etched his name amongst history’s most reviled.
The grave implications of the Ukraine conflict quickly fed through into increasingly volatile financial markets, with share markets declining and bond prices also generally falling over the quarter.
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Key market movements for the quarter
The quarter started on a positive note for most share markets which, aside from a November lull, mostly ended the year strongly. It was a slightly different story in bond markets, with a weak start extending to early November, and generally a small recovery thereafter.
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The fourth quarter of 2021 rounded out another year when developed share markets posted strong returns, despite ongoing uncertainties relating to global supply chains, inflation, interest rates and, of course, emerging variants of Covid-19.
Market performance continued to be driven more by supportive economic and financial data such as positive economic growth, low interest rates, and good corporate earnings.
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