There are, doubtless, innumerable investors across the world looking at their portfolio statements this month with some disbelief. For stocks, bonds, commodities and gold all to incur the sort of wild swings they have experienced is more than a little unsettling. From our perspective, we adopt a four-factor model that we will continue to use. We allocate to objectively high quality sovereign credits now yielding roughly 5.25% versus US Treasuries (the putative "risk free rate") where the 5 year yield is less than 1.5% even after the gyrations of June. We allocate to defensive and attractively priced listed equities. We allocate to systematic trend-following funds that we consider to be broadly market neutral over the medium term and which we therefore view as bellwether investments. And we allocate to real assets, notably the monetary metals, gold and silver. Not one single news or market event causes us to question our commitment to this approach (which is, in truth, a way of not having to make extreme subjective judgments about the merits of disparate asset classes, or about market timing).

David Fuller's view This remains a diversified strategy which is generally less volatile than its individual sectors.