Sketchnote: Investment market overview 15th May 2014

I'm always trying to push boundaries and test novel ways of bringing finance and investment insights to you.

Sketchnoting is a great concept which aims to use doodles to capture complex ideas, lectures, research or whatever you want in order to aid understanding. So below is my attempt to sketchnote what has been driving equity markets (and your investments) this week, with a focus on the FTSE 100. Just click on the image to enlarge it.

And to help I've put some bullet points below the image to help those who might not be overly familiar with the investment world.

Sketchnote

Investment Market Overview:

• ongoing tensions in Ukraine continues to provide bouts of risk aversion among equity investors.
• but other news has been supportive and propping up equity markets with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (in America) hitting all-time highs. But the market remains expensive and overvalued based on historic measures and there are signs that investors are beginning to pull money out of US shares.
• The US, UK and Japan have all done it (Quantitative Easing aka QE of money printing) in attempts to drive up asset prices and now the Head of the European Central Bank (Mario Draghi, nicknamed Super Mario) has hinted that the eurozone might join the club. Money printing has driven the stock market rally of the last 5 years, so will Europe turning on the printing presses have the same effect?
• The concern over the health of the world's second biggest economy (China) was put at ease briefly as export numbers beat analyst expectations.
• Janet Yellen (who is the head of the US Federal Reserve) hinted at a dovish stance on when interest rates are likely to rise in the US. So with interest rates unlikely to be raised soon markets were happy.

So to sum up, despite there being a number of causes for concern the equity markets deemed there was enough good news (around the potential for more easy money) to keep the party going. Hmmmm