UK heads the list of poor performers

The first half of 2000 has been something of an ordeal but despite some nerve-wracking gyrations in international markets, the MSCI World Index has shown remarkable resilience. That said, the positive performance of global equities as a whole masks some fairly dismal results from a few individual markets, notably the UK. The FTSE All-Share is off 4.3% in sterling terms so far this year. This, and the recent sharp declines in the value of sterling has certainly helped to strengthen the argument in favour of international diversification. Given recent talk of a hard landing in the US and...