WAS it me or did January fly by? Was it the mild weather, or just a better stock market that made us all at Charles Stanley feel that little bit better than 2011?

The UK stock market turned in its best January performance for 15 years as investors chose to overlook the European crisis. The number of shares traded was well below the average but investor appetite remained strong. Coupled with investors having to buy out-of-favour sectors to cover shares they had sold but did not hold, known as short covering, this meant UK equities returned a very good performance of +2.7 per cent over the month.

However, in time-honoured fashion other markets did even better. Asia, excluding Japan turned in +8.6 per cent, Europe, excluding the UK turned in +3.8 per cent and the US turned in +3.1 per cent.

Government stock rose slightly over the month, particularly at the long end, in anticipation of further printing of money by the Bank of England, who make their decision today.

The mining, banking and insurance sectors were among the best performers, while oil and gas, food retail (Tesco!) and mobile telecoms were the laggards.

So where does this leave investors? In truth, a diversified portfolio will have enjoyed all the benefits that are mentioned above and, having been fortunate enough to have largely avoided the Tesco debacle by selling the stock between Christmas and New Year, avoided some of the pitfalls.

However, the message remains do not get carried away with this equity run. The Greek problem will return, although I have mentioned many times before that this is the sideshow in Europe. Spain and Italy remain weak and the real problem.

Printing money either via quantitative easing or through the long-term refinancing operation in Europe will not solve the problem, it simply kicks it further down the road.

Investors will soon be, or have already been, caught up in what is happening across the pond in the US. Certainly recent data has suggested that the picture may be improving, but I feel slightly cynical towards some of this data.

Throw your mind forward to November and you will see a presidential election and then move your mind back to December last year in terms of unemployment data. While you are doing these mental gymnastics I will come to your rescue.

The latest unemployment data from the US shows that the December figure has been massaged by a massive further 266,000 souls now being employed due to the way the data is collected. Call me cynical, but are these real jobs?

In addition, if these figures turn out to be true and the trend continues, the biggest stimulus to shares will be removed – the printing of money. There are opportunities but it is still too early to call an end, and chill winds will persist for a bit.