Politics was an overarching theme in 2024 – and, regrettably, will remain so in 2025 as global investors figure out likely policy action by central banks and the growth outlook for 2025. “This time it’s different” (TTID) and FOMO remain the most malign forces acting on asset prices, but is a new full blown European Sov Debt Crisis also on the cards?

Oh, to be a fly on the wall while they wrote the speeches for last night’s Mansion House dinner. The Bank’s Bailey railed against Brexit, while Chancellor Reeves plans to deregulate financial services and refocus UK investment through new Megafunds. What could possibly go wrong?

Let’s be dispassionate about the US election result. What kind of upside will a Bonfire of Regulations and Surging Confidence bring to markets? What are the risks of Trump’s new start for US markets? The next four years look… interesting.

I am not particularly worried about tomorrow’s UK budget statement, but from the noise you’d think it’s the end of the world. I suspect there are elements of the UK’s political blob who will be very happy for Rachel Reeves to challenge Liz Truss in the incompetency stakes. She won’t, but the blob will try to undermine her – perhaps through the Gilts Market.

Bond markets reflect facts. Equities are about stories. There is a shift in markets underway – where are rates, inflation and politics taking us? Traders want to see certainty – and that will be reflected in bond rates.

The UK election is the most important in decades, but the debate on policy and the future is trapped in the minutiae of the financial orthodoxy of costed and funded policy tweaks. The malign ghost of Liz Truss and the Trusterf*ck haunts markets like a bad smell. It must be exorcised!

It was once holy scripture that government bonds were the risk-free-rate from which all risks were priced. In the last decade markets have changed. The bond market is increasingly hollow and thin. The reality is few folk outside bonds pay attention – central banks set bond rates. Good or bad thing?

The UK’s general election will be the most critical moment in UK politics in decades. The key point will be for prospective new Chancellor Rachel Reeves to persuade global markets the UK is investible. She needs to be absolutely clear on her plans and engagement.

The Bank of England is concerned about financial institutional risk associated with the rapid growth of private capital markets. A PE or Private Credit market crash would trigger a liquidity event which spawns crisis, but also massive opportunity. It will be yet another consequence of regulation and mispriced money in the wake of the 2008 GFC!

Despite the robust US economy, the market’s prime concern remains when and how quickly the Fed will ease interest rates. What if they don’t? We’re heading into a new normalised post GFC interest rate environment, and long-term higher rates will be a good thing!