Economic and market insight
Review of the week: Fun, in a coat
Review of the week: A chill wind blows
A week of Fed watching cooled the recent rise in US Treasury yields, sending the dollar and sterling lower. Then British flags followed suit.
Review of the week: Resurrection
The US economy is rocketing towards recovery, with jobs, confidence and output soaring amid a strong vaccination drive and stimulus. Next on the list, investment in clean energy.
Review of the week: The delicate web of trade
The strands of trade connecting markets are as important to our living standards as they are fragile. A stranded ship in the Suez highlights both points at once.
Review of the week: Calm in the eye of the storm
As the fight against COVID-19 continues, economies are beginning to reopen. Are we about to experience a typhoon of activity to mirror the huge slumps of 2020?
Review of the week: Cheques and balances
The average American family has received $11,400 of government cheques since the pandemic began. That’s a big windfall for people and a difficult economic puzzle for the US Federal Reserve to decipher.
Review of the week: America rising
The US is about to turn on the spending taps once again to combat the effects of the pandemic. This time it coincides with the reopening, so expectations for GDP growth are soaring – taking yields with them.
Review of the week: Bond vigilantes
When bond markets move, governments and stock markets take note. A swift rise in yields has rattled equities and focused attention on countries’ swollen debt piles.
Review of the week: Sprouts of spring
Flowers, hopes and yields are rising as spring approaches. Still, the UK government is only very cautiously reopening as vaccinations continue apace.
Review of the week: Profits are back
Company profits are bouncing back earlier than expected. How quickly will our economies come back to life once vaccinations are finished? And how different will they be?
Pages
America is opening up along with the spring blossoms, and a strong summer of spending seems to be on the way. The rebound in fortunes has helped the S&P 500 reach new highs which, as chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth notes, go hand in hand with rising yields.
Bond yields and a new season’s flowers both sprung up last month, heralding an end to the dark days of lockdown winter. Chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth ponders the big question on investors’ minds – does this also foreshadow a prolonged period of higher inflation?
After a busy start to the year there’s still a lot of uncertainty swirling around in markets. But economies tend to bounce back hard after sombre periods, and hope remains that our eventual return to ‘normal’ will be no different.
A roller-coaster of a year finished on a high note for the markets, and we start 2021 with a sense of relief that one of the most difficult years many of us have ever experienced is behind us.
With a clutch of vaccines on the way soon, equity markets were in a buoyant mood in November. But there are still a lot of things we don’t know – and even some things we don’t know that we don’t know…
Equities fell in October as investors came to terms with tighter lockdown restrictions, but hopes for a new round of US stimulus under President-elect Joe Biden have buoyed markets, and Chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth reckons we should take heart.
With summer fading into memory, a long uncertain winter of social distancing lies ahead. It’s easy to feel gloomy, but as chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth argues, we should try not to buy into the doom.
As summer winds down and the pandemic persists, governments are finding it hard to taper their support measures.
The hard data is coming in and so far companies have fared better through the pandemic than expected. Just how long complete recovery will take no one knows, but as chief economist Julian Chillingworth notes, we maintain our long-held belief in the human capacity to co-operate and solve problems.
With the groundwork laid for a rapid recovery, equity markets reflected continued optimism in June. But as chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth notes, significant risks remain.
- 1 of 4
- next ›