David Fuller's view The markets have reopened with relief and also a degree of enthusiasm today, clearly with some help from a last minute US Budget Agreement, ending the immediate fiscal cliff banality. A successful consolidation and extension of these gains over the next few weeks would be a significant, positive development.

We all have our 'yes, but' concerns and questions, which is normal. However, the key factors driving these markets and the global economy, in Fullermoney's opinion, appear neither to be fully discounted nor to have changed significantly. Here is a summary:

1) The quantitative easing (QE) tailwind will eventually be withdrawn but what matters now is that it continues and is intentionally bullish for most asset classes; 2) The overall global fundamental economic news is inevitably chequered, but crucially, remains better than most people have been expecting; 3) consequently, many investors including financial institutions, are underinvested in so-called 'risk assets', to use another banal term; 4) as for balance sheets, many leading companies, including most Autonomies and Dividend Aristocrats favoured by Fullermoney, are much stronger than their underlying economies, particularly in the West.

The four points above summarise important medium-term trends, in my opinion. It has generally paid to run with them during the last 4 years, subject to relative performance in what has sometimes been a volatile environment. Meanwhile, the total return chart for US Treasuries remains steady but has seen little change since the beginning of June 2012