And so, while our favourite confectionary loses its peaks so does our stock market with the FTSE 100 having another wobble today, presumably on the back of some trivial political matter across the Atlantic.
Does this mean you should be taking a bite into this weakness or, like the new Toblerone, are we expecting things to, well, fall a bit flat?
Since June’s EU referendum, you could say the path of the FTSE has in some ways resembled the traditional Toblerone, albeit with an upwards slope.
"Is volatility making you feel uncomfortable? The bad news is we ain’t seen nothing yet"
Having fallen to below 6,000 by 27 June, the index was up past 6,500 by the end of that month. We saw another slip at the start of August before threatening the 7,000 mark a couple of weeks later.
Fast forward to mid-September and worries about the pound saw £50bn ($62bn, €56bn) wiped off the FTSE 100 in three days, before an all-time intra-day high of 7,129 was achieved on 11 October. That brings us to last week’s fall, and today’s Trump slump.
Is volatility making you feel uncomfortable? Currency woes aside, the bad news is we ain’t seen nothing yet.
For all the bluster around Brexit, the latest legal challenge means we are no closer to knowing exactly when Article 50 will be triggered.
Aside from yesterday’s tired acceptance speech, Trump hasn’t actually said anything much either.
That will soon change, of course, though the removal from his website of a statement calling for a ban on Muslims entering the US suggests he may be willing to at least tone down his rants.
While yesterday’s market bounce may have taken some by surprise, Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, suggests it was grounded in the differential between Trump’s economic and social policies.
“While Trump’s controversial rhetoric with regards to immigrants and Muslims stole the headlines, he is predictably very pro-business, promising lower income and corporation taxes,” he says.
“Regardless of who builds the wall, Trump promises it will be done and this seems to be just the tip of the iceberg in the midst of a whole raft of infrastructure projects, boosting growth and employment.
“With the promise of a tax repatriation scheme for multinationals, lower tax rates and higher government spending, it seems the markets are waking up to the chance of a growth driven economic period for the US”.
Still, for the immediate future at least, Scott Mather, chief investment officer of US core strategies at Pimco, suggests greater uncertainty means higher risk premia.
“Volatility is likely to stay elevated relative to recent levels,” he says.
“At this point, given uncertainties about Trump’s policy agenda, key government leadership positions and likely changes in foreign and trade policy – and world government and market reactions to those shifts – what is unknown about the outlook outstrips what is known.”
Admittedly, none of this may help you decide whether you should buy or sell out of risk assets, though it does suggest another period of uncomfortable volatility, especially into next year when things will REALLY start to change.
