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Spring of hope following winter of doom?
6 April 2023This year began in anticipation of imminent global recession, but imminent did mean immediate, and as the second quarter gets under way, the chances of a global recession may be less now than they were. ...
Swiss parochialism backfires
24 March 2023March continues to provide investors with the opposite of the ‘steady-as-she-goes’ environment of January and February. News this week of consumer price inflation in the UK rising again, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and the...
Bank stress testing
17 March 2023Unease about the state of markets had been palpable since more or less the beginning of the year, as noted repeatedly on these pages over the past months. Following the run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week, financial system...
Market wrestling
10 March 2023For weeks we have been talking of an equity market that is relatively expensive in comparison to bond markets, especially government bond markets. Below is a chart which tracks the dividend yield of the FTSE 100 (calculated from...
Mood swings
3 March 2023For some time, bond and equity markets have been experiencing teenager-like mood swings. As February ended and March began, government bond yields continued their march higher to levels last seen last autumn, when stock markets...
Balancing acts
27 February 2023Over the past fortnight, market participants have come to accept inflation – and in its wake interest rates – will stay higher for longer than previously anticipated. As a result, rising bond yields have been one factor pushing...