To many investors the opening quarter of 2013 has appeared to be very similar to the opening quarters of 2012 and 2011. Once again equity markets have started the year strongly and investor confidence appears to have returned. However, many investors are now subsequently concerned that the patterns of 2011 and 2012, where markets started strongly, but faded and retraced over the subsequent months, is once again going to play out during 2013. There is evidence to support that view, as the world remains in a period of slow economic growth and threats to that remain, but there is also evidence that 2013 will not follow the pattern of the preceding two years. Reasons for this include, that unlike 2012 there is no uncertainty regarding elections in the USA or China, plus economic fundamentals have continued to slowly improve, although significant country and regional differences clearly do exist, and simply that another year of recovery from the crisis has passed. Only at the end of 2013 will anyone be able to say with certainty that 2013 was different, or not. During the first quarter, Indian equity markets, as measured by the Bombay Stock Exchange 500 Index delivered a return of -5.82% . This was in sharp contrast to the global equity market which rose over 5%, as indicated by the MSCI World Index. The Indian market did follow the global trend in January as equity markets rose, and the Indian market was broadly in line with a return of over 4% for the month. However, in February the Indian market declined substantially, dropping - 8.8%. This was on concerns of the economic growth outlook and reforms being implemented in India, while more broadly global investor sentiment softened in February. Then in March the Indian market once again produced a small decline, which was approaching -1%.