Why investors are gambling on placid stockmarkets

Sod’s law, the axiom that if something can go wrong then it will, is about as British as it gets. But traders around the world have their own version: that markets will move in whatever direction causes the most pain to the most people. This year, they have been vindicated by a soaring stockmarket that few saw coming, in which the biggest winners have been the shares that were already eye-wateringly expensive to begin with. In April fund managers told Bank of America’s monthly survey that “long big tech” was the most faddish trade going, making it an obvious one for the professionals to avoid. Over the next few months shares in the biggest big tech firms duly left the rest of the market in the dust.