UK investors yet to regain nerve

Although 2004 witnessed the worst overall set of natural disasters for many decades this did not affect the returns from the stock market in general, insurance companies excepted. The sterling total return from equities with dividends reinvested was 13%; when translated into US dollars the return was 22%, to rank the UK market close to the median in an international context. All categories within the UK market produced positive numbers, not surprisingly, in view of the achieved above trend growth of some 3.5% in the UK economy as commonly forecast. In general, the results were of a more la...