America is opening up along with the spring blossoms, and a strong summer of spending seems to be on the way. The rebound in fortunes has helped the S&P 500 reach new highs which, as chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth notes, go hand in hand with rising yields.

The air is cold but the company is warm. England wraps up for the reopening of pubs and restaurants.

A week of Fed watching cooled the recent rise in US Treasury yields, sending the dollar and sterling lower. Then British flags followed suit.

The US economy is rocketing towards recovery, with jobs, confidence and output soaring amid a strong vaccination drive and stimulus. Next on the list, investment in clean energy.

The strands of trade connecting markets are as important to our living standards as they are fragile. A stranded ship in the Suez highlights both points at once.

As the fight against COVID-19 continues, economies are beginning to reopen. Are we about to experience a typhoon of activity to mirror the huge slumps of 2020?

Bond yields and a new season’s flowers both sprung up last month, heralding an end to the dark days of lockdown winter. Chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth ponders the big question on investors’ minds – does this also foreshadow a prolonged period of higher inflation?

The US is about to turn on the spending taps once again to combat the effects of the pandemic. This time it coincides with the reopening, so expectations for GDP growth are soaring – taking yields with them.

When bond markets move, governments and stock markets take note. A swift rise in yields has rattled equities and focused attention on countries’ swollen debt piles.

After a busy start to the year there’s still a lot of uncertainty swirling around in markets. But economies tend to bounce back hard after sombre periods, and hope remains that our eventual return to ‘normal’ will be no different.