Anthony Rayner: A health check on markets

Important recent developments span the political, economic and corporate spectra. The eurozone political pipeline suddenly looks more positive, recent economic data releases suggest we have moved from accelerating growth to mature growth and the corporate earnings season has been pretty impressive. As broadly anticipated, last Sunday the French elected a centrist, pro-European president. On the same day, Angela Merkel's party won convincingly in a state election. This is a small state but victory was unexpected and indicates a shift back to mainstream stability, which bodes well for Merk...