Laura Bessarati

There's been a lot going on, of course, between the US and Iran, but also a number of companies have declined.

downgraded guidance due to the impacts of the conflict.

And of course, yesterday, we saw inflation soar to 4.6% for the year to March.

That was driven by higher transport and petrol prices.

And it really just puts another rate hike on the table next Tuesday on May the 5th when the RBA meets next.

It certainly hasn't been, but it's been a fairly different story over in the United States.

It's been quite a big contrast.

In fact, their market is up by 9.3%.

Of course, they've got tonight's session to go before they round out the month.

But if they do close around those levels, that could be the best month for the S&P 500 since November 2020.

So a very different story over there in the United States.

If we have a look at what happened across the different sectors over the course of the month, you mentioned most of them have actually improved.

We're seeing tech doing absolutely best.

It's up around 13.5%.

Keep in mind, eight of 11 sectors have improved over the course of the month.

But tech, yeah, it is the outperformer over the course of this month, but it's been losing ground for eight straight months.

It's fallen by around 50% between August 2025 and

March 2026.

So you need to take that with a grain of salt, the fact that it has improved.

We have seen materials post its ninth monthly improvement over the past 10 months.