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Diversification is a powerful tool, perhaps the most powerful one in investing. Decades of experience has shown that broad exposure through index trackers offer a low cost, transparent discipline that’s hard to beat. And it is a core principle underlying ebi’s approach to investing across our portfolio suites, from the pure market-weighted Core range to the factor aware Earth range.

The company’s shares took off after listing, then came back down sharply as investors reassessed the price. It saw multiple days with percentage-point price swings in the double digits. That is not unusual. Newly listed companies often spend their first weeks and months finding a level. Some rally well beyond the offer price. Others fall back once the initial excitement fades. Many do both.

The current wave of mega-IPOs is reviving a familiar concern about passive and rules-based investing: that broadly diversified portfolios would be forced to buy fashionable new stocks in vast quantities just as excitement peaks. The reality is more disciplined and more interesting than that.

Global equities continued their April rally into May following March’s 5.6% drawdown initiated by the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East. The equity rally was driven in part by the market’s optimism of a potential diplomatic resolution between the US and Iran, but it drew a stark contrast with the reality of ever-deepening supply shortages in the global oil markets, particularly across Asia.

Our latest market commentary covers the drivers of market conditions across Q1, along with factor and asset class.

March was defined by a single, seismic event: the outbreak of direct military conflict between the United States/Israel and Iran. Following US and Israeli air strikes on Iran on 28th February, markets were engulfed in the most severe geopolitical and energy shock in years. Oil prices surged by as much as 50% in the space of weeks, global bonds sold off sharply as investors reappraised the inflation outlook, and equities fell across the board. Global equities returned -5.58% for the month, while global bonds returned -1.18%. The conflict rapidly spread beyond Iran’s borders, disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints, triggering a sweeping reassessment of the global economic and interest rate outlook.

The current escalation in the Middle East intensified sharply on Saturday 28th February 2026 when Israel and the United States carried out what it called pre-emptive strikes targeting Iranian strategic and military infrastructure. The attacks marked a significant expansion of hostilities between the two regional powers and heightened fears of a broader regional conflict.

Global equity and bond markets rebounded strongly in February following mixed performance earlier in the year. Equities delivered solid gains as easing inflation in the US and Europe supported investor appetite for risk assets. Fixed income markets also recovered, reversing January’s losses as expectations for interest rate cuts later in the year increased.