During the latter part of April, a vicious shakeout in global markets began and the fear of a euro collapse contributed to a brief and frightening mini crash in stock markets on 6/7 May. In hindsight, our belief that the Greek crisis was starting to escalate again in March was accurate and reducing equity exposure during April was therefore prudent.

The financial markets simply did not trust Greek authorities to steer the economy away from an eventual default, nor did they believe that the then rescue package of €110bn would fix the problem. Social upheaval and civil rebellion was rapidly unfolding in Greece.

The mammoth additional European fiscal support package announced on the 9th of May was an attempt to shock financial markets out of the negative dynamics that was on the brink of spiralling out of control. As the U.S. stress test of bank balance sheets in 2008 showed, it is all about confidence. That test ultimately proved sufficient to convince investors that none of the systemically important U.S. banks would be allowed to fail, marking the turning point in investor confidence and the bottom in stock markets.