It might be hard to pick who has been a winner in terms of global politics, but Huawei's heiress and CFO, Meng Wanzhou would certainly have to qualify as a loser. Her shock arrest on December 1 in Canada reignited geo-political tensions, and helped spur the market jitters which saw significant downward moves in equity markets across the globe.

The Huawei issue alongside Trump shutting down the US Federal Government and China trade tensions all conspired to create negative returns for growth assets. In 2018, asset class performance has been significantly lower than 10-year averages. The following chart demonstrates;

The green bars show how significant the deviation in returns have been for the growth assets of Australian and International Equities. Bonds (thankfully) did their ‘thing’ and performed well in the risk averse environment.

What investors must remember before they start piling in to 2018’s winner (Australian Bonds), is that this year’s winner is not necessarily next year’s.