After a grim October, markets around the world appear to have stabilised a touch, primarily on the back of growing optimism around the US/China trade dispute.
On Thursday (1 November), president Donald Trump tweeted that he had had a very good conversation on trade with Xi Jinping, the president of China, giving hope the trade war that has dogged markets this year may soon come to an end. This helped to create a broader positive sentiment, spurring hopes that the heavy selling market that occurred in October may now be over.
Despite closing slightly down on Friday's trading, the FTSE 100 closed with gains of 2.38% last week. Despite these gains, most markets remain in the red year-to-date. However, the recovery has given hope that October's selling was a correction in the mould of the February sell-off this year, rather than the start of a more prolonged market downturn.