_{The year has started with a thud in a number of share markets in particular China.  There have been various reports that the sky is falling in and a publicised extract from royal bank of Scotland that clients should  “sell everything”. An article in this week’s Herald debunk this to a degree with a number of local operators suggesting that whilst turbulence is expected, there is no need to panic.}

_{I use a number of research houses to assist in recommendations and gain insight and the general consensus is for markets to remain somewhat volatile through the year over the medium term growth assets should outperform defensive assets. Growth will be slowed by the opaque ramifications of China’s stock market , and expected rate rises in the US.
With oil being at the lowest price for 12 years and the price of other commodities reducing seemingly to over supply rather than lack of demand, along with the US market showing stronger signs of growth, there are still good stories out there. This long term drop in commodity prices could be read as a positive sign for a lot of companies, although for investors it would imply a period of low interest rates.}

_{Even,   for all the panic, the Shanghai index is still 50% higher than it was 2 years ago (Bloomberg).}

_{If you are invested with my company it is likely that your investments are held for medium and long term and I’d keep that front of mind when reading headlines that are simply trying to sell today’s papers.}