According to Christopher Gannatti, Head of Research, WisdomTree, the lesson here for investors is the potential to embrace volatility. Where a rising VIX typically equates to a short-term equity sell-off, EM investors who have used the dips as buying opportunities historically have seen positive results.

Despite the increasing number of natural disasters in 2017, the CAT bond market continues to grow. Despite recent poor performance, both outstandings assets and new issuances have reached record levels by the end of 2017.

Jupiter has launched the Jupiter Flexible Income fund, a sub-fund of the Jupiter Global Fund SICAV. Managed by Head of Strategy, Multi- Asset, Talib Sheikh, the fund will look to harvest a sustainable level of regularincome across multiple asset classes on a global basis. Initial yield is estimatedto be 4-6% with the prospect of capital growth over the long term (three to five years).

According to Olaf Tölke, team leader, corporates, Scope Ratings, low interest rates are a major problem because they don't reflect the true cost of risk. The result is that enterprises and individuals have taken on more and more debt simply because it is cheap.

Financial markets have staged a remarkable recovery since the fall of Lehman Brothers, but it's been a joyless affair,” says Vice Chairman Edward Bonham Carter. “The ending of central bank support, both feared and wanted, hangs like a sword of Damocles over the market.”