April may, indeed, be the cruelest month, as T.S. Eliot once declared. At least, April 2012 dashed the hopes of many investors that the eurozone worries would remain on the back burner and that the U.S. stock market rally would continue to gain momentum. True, U.S. stocks didn’t lose all that much ground overall – the S&P 500 index wrapped up the month with a 0.8% decline – but after such a strong first quarter, signs of weakness rattled investors’ nerves and sent some fleeing back to the safe haven asset classes. Globally, the picture wasn’t much more robust, although the overall weakness masked a wide ... (full story)