The impending death of the €500 note has huge implications on the conduct and shape of future monetary policy. We believe the upcoming decision to stop printing the bill goes beyond anti-money laundering, which is commonly cited as the reason.

Hedge funds' returns weakened in sympathy with last week's retreat in risky assets. Losses were mild in general, with few notable underperformers. By contrast, CTAs outperformed, recouping their earlier losses as yields and oil weakened. Funds keeping a low beta also performed well, the neutral and variable equity funds especially.

According to Keith Wade, Economist at Schroders, at first glance this would seem to be a soft report; however, other elements were more robust. For example, average hourly earnings growth ticked up to 2.5% year-on-year and the average work week increased by 0.4% month-on-month. The latter is a useful indicator of GDP growth...

There has been much discussion over the recent weeks on the outflows suffered by the hedge fund industry. Several data providers estimated the decline in global hedge fund capital in the first quarter of 2016 at about USD 15bn.

According to Nathan Gibbs, Japanese Equities portfolio manager at Schroders, regardless of the actual level of interest rates or details of policy, the main issue around today's Bank of Japan decision is one of inconsistency.