It's tempting to suggest that we can ignore the year so far

as virtually all the most dramatic transit that we saw in the first six weeks or so of the year, have now completed reversing.

Even the S&P 500 itself was briefly up for the year at one point today.

It's tempting, but it's unbalanced, I still think we should resist that temptation.

We start by taking a look at the dollar,

this is the trade-weighted index against a basket of other significant currencies.

A very sharp move down in the last two days following the very dovish statement we got from the Federal Reserve.

Put in perspective you can see we're still very much stronger for the dollar than we were two years ago

it's still not necessarily clear that the trend is been emphatically reversed

but a distinct, clear relief of the pressure,

a weak dollar makes life a lot easier for a lot of people, particularly in the emerging markets,

reduces some of what's known as the tail risk, the risk of a significant crisis.

Now if we take a look at WTI Crude,

you can see again, if we look at it as a long term perspective,

perhaps you shouldn't get too carried away by what's happened so far this year.

But we are up for the year, we're back above 40 dollars per barrel,

there is still a long way to go before this very dramatic, downward trend could be emphatically reversed.

But plainly there are reasons why we have seen the recovery of the last few weeks.

Now if I'd shown you a surprise data for how U.S. economic data have come in,

that would've shown you a V shape,

so would volatility, so would inflation breakevens.

there's a persistent pattern that we have seen a V shape as people suffered a very significant recessional deflationary scare

in as to about the second week of February and then steadily recovered from it.

Does that mean that all is well?

No, there are still some significant signs that all is not totally as it should be.

Let's take a look at the S&P 500 and compare it to the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrat Index.

This is an index of companies which are particularly reliable at paying out their dividends

and generally something that begins to appeal to you when you're nervous,

when you want to be sure that you actually get your money,

It's a "show me the money" index.

And as you can see, it has radically outperformed over the last few months.

When people are that concerned to see money upfront, it's generally a sign that they still lack confidence.

Bear in mind, it's still obvious that the S&P remains well below its peak from last May.

And I don't think we can discount all that just happened over the last twelve weeks.

Plainly, there was a very significant scare, that scare has been reversed.

We are still unfortunately left with rather a worrying situation where there is still a lack of confidence.