Despite the flood of bad news in the quarter, it has turned out rather well as investors, especially in the US and Europe rediscovered risk and the joys of cheap money.

Overseas the euro crisis hasn't gone away (and returned in strength with Portugal close to the brink of a bailout and Ireland needing billions of euros from its bailout package to help staunch the bleeding from some of its badly run banks).

On top of that has been the surge in oil prices from the outbreak of tension in North Africa and the Middle East that has added to the already gathering inflationary pressures elsewhere in commodity prices for coal, iron ore, coal, grains and other foodstuffs.

The list of bad news was rather daunting, starting with the Japanese quake, tsunami and then the nuclear disaster at Fukushima from March 11 onwards that has killed close to 30,000 people, caused damage estimated at $US300 billion, and now threatens to choke Japan's confidence and economy.

Before that we had the February 22 quake in Christchurch that has hit New Zealand hard, an important economy for a host of Australian companies in the media, retailing, finance and building and construction.

January saw the bad flood in Queensland and northern Victoria, plus Cyclone Yasi in Queensland and Cyclone Carlos in the Northern Territory and parts of WA.

The Chinese economy is slowing, while interest rates in other parts of Asia are rising to try and crimp rising inflation caused by energy and food costs.

In Australia, the