UK Equity Income monthly commentary April 2026
After the declines in March a recovery in equity prices in April was not unexpected. In the event, UK shares made modest progress of low single digits in percentage terms over the month. In part this was due to a meaningful decline in the value of the dollar over the same period. That is a surprising development as traditionally the dollar strengthens in times of international tension. In our view, this is one indicator of several that points to this crisis being quite different from previous such events.
Oil prices were unusually volatile during April as markets attempted to make sense of the rapidly changing physical constraints in the Middle East with the added complication of erratic and unpredictable news flow from the major protagonists in the Gulf War.
Ultimately, by the end of the month the energy sector had given up some of the gains it had made in the previous month and was one of only two sectors, along with healthcare, to post negative returns in April.
The highest return was achieved by the IT sector which chalked up a double- digit gain over the month. Most of the other sectors made healthy progress in April recording increases of mid to high single digits in percentage terms. Consumer staples was the only sector to flirt with the zero bound.
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