When markets slumped in March as the spread of coronavirus gathered pace, wealth managers’ trading volumes soared as ultra rich clients reshuffled their portfolios.

It was this market frenzy that helped Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse – the world’s biggest wealth managers – post bumper first-quarter profits while much of the global banking sector was scrambling to make provisions to withstand the economic fallout from the pandemic.

Recent news headlines state that the hedge fund industry saw its highest level of redemptions during the 1st quarter of 2020 in over a decade, with $33 billion leaving the industry. A more appropriate headline would have been “Hedge Funds Only Lose 1% of Industry Assets – Learned from 2008 Experience.”

When global equity markets lost around US$16 trillion of their value in a single month this year, the wealthy found themselves no more protected from financial loss than anyone else.