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THERE MAY BE PROBLEMS AHEAD… By the end of March 2019, stock markets had recovered from the severe whipping they’d received in the last quarter of 2018. All major markets were home to stellar growth, with even the FTSE All Share rising by 8.3% despite Brexit concerns. The upturn pushed UK platform assets up 7.3% to £637bn, a vast improvement on Q418, but only £4bn higher than Q318’s closing balance of £633bn. Hargreaves Lansdown, D2C platform and the UK’s largest distributor, moved into pole position as the UK’s largest investment platform.

In July the UK government finally agreed an exit strategy with the EU and the outlook began to look rosier. But as the quarter wore on, resignations and vocal criticism abounded dampening investor sentiment and sending stock markets into the red — the FTSE 100 and the FTSE All Share indices fell by 1.8% in the quarter.  Download the release here