The US Federal reserve bank is meeting and Chairman Jerome Powell will hold a press conference which should emphasise that the progress on inflation has slowed in the first quarter. The monthly US job report will be the arbiter on the strength of the labour market, in particular following the recent drop in employment in business surveys. Preliminary inflation figures for April are due in the euro zone and some of its members, including France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Preliminary GDP growth estimates of the past quarter will also be in the spotlight. Final numbers on industrial production and retail sales from developed countries will help investors gauge consumer spending and provide insight into the state of the economic cycle.

With the Global flash PMIs out, focus will shift to major economies' growth momentum. European readings, especially Germany's, are closely watched after the lagging performance among euro zone peers last year.

While these objectives are laudable, there are methodological obstacles. The initial objectives of Solvency II were harmonization, financial stability and policyholder protection. The text had therefore been conceived as a risk-based regulation, based on the valuation of the balance sheet on a mark-to-market basis and on capital requirements calibrated using Value at Risk (VaR) with a confidence level of 99.5%.

March was a clement month for investors, with most asset classes delivering a positive performance.

In our opinion, it is time to add cyclicity to the portfolio to benefit from an improving environment.

Global stock markets ended Q1 at an all-time high, fuelled by continued investor optimism. The resilience of the global economy, particularly in the US, has pleasantly surprised many.

Markets held up well during March, supported by robust economic indicators coming from the US, manufacturing and services PMIs improving in China and an increasingly dovish stance from the ECB.

High yield markets are shrinking. Do you know that they have contracted by 25% over the past two years? The ICE BofA BB-B Global High Yield Index has lost $654 million in value. In the meanwhile, investor demand for credit and high yield has rebounded at the end of last year.