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Schroders Equity Lens March 2026: your go-to guide to global equity markets
Investing when geopolitical and stagflation risks are high.
Четене на целия отчетSchroders Equity Lens March 2026
66 страници
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The March 2026 edition of the Schroders Equity Lens is now available: Schroders Equity Lens
Summary:
Note that market conditions are evolving rapidly. The performance and valuation charts on slides 11-14 of the summary section have been updated as at 10 March 2026. All others are as at 28 February 2026, unless started otherwise
- Heightened geopolitical risk and a soaring oil price have caused equities to sell off
- Historically, geopolitical risk does not automatically translate into market losses (slide 6)
- Rising energy prices increase the risk of stagflation (high inflation/low growth)
- Over the past 100 years, stagflation has been a challenging environment for equities but at such times they’ve still roughly matched inflation on average, and usually beaten cash (slide 7)
- On an economic basis, as commodity net importers, European and Asian economies are more vulnerable to commodity price rises, while the US is better placed (slide 8)
- On a stock market sectoral basis, the UK is significantly overweight the more defensive sectors which have performed well during past oil price spikes. Japan/EM have challenging exposures, US/Europe also vulnerable (slides 9-10)
- EM, Japanese and UK stock markets are still up 6-7% in USD terms this year, as at 10 March. The US trails on -1%. (slide 11)
- Dispersion has increased: the proportion of countries and companies that have been outperforming the broad market has increased. EM equities are an exception, with performance concentrated in the mega caps (slides 12-13)
- Value equities have a low correlation with AI-stocks and have delivered much better outcomes in down-markets for AI-stocks. Most passive approaches to value investing risk leading to disappointment on this front (slide 15-16).
A reminder of long-term stock market experience (slides 17-22):
- 10%+ falls happen in more years than not, 20% falls once every four years
- on average each year, at some point the market falls by 15% and rises by 23%
- when volatility rises it will feel scary but jumping ship at these times would have been damaging to your wealth
- although the ride is bumpy, equities have been less risky than cash when it comes to delivering long-term inflation-beating returns
- there is always a reason to worry but, in the long-run, stocks have beaten bonds which have beaten cash
Charts of the month:
Четене на целия отчетSchroders Equity Lens March 2026
66 страници
Authors
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