IN FOCUS6-8 min read
Schroders Equity Lens March 2026: your go-to guide to global equity markets
Investing when geopolitical and stagflation risks are high.
Lees volledig rapportSchroders Equity Lens March 2026
66 Pagina's
Autheurs
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:
Lees volledig rapportSchroders Equity Lens March 2026
66 Pagina's
Subscribe to our Insights
Visit our preference center, where you can choose which Schroders Insights you would like to receive.
Autheurs
Topics