Consumption and a cost-of-living crisis are upon us, but markets blithely assume it’s all upside to 2023. The risk is not a massive crash, but growing realisation the global economy has peaked, needs a period of normalisation and a reset after the madness of the last decade.
Political instability is turning into a global competition as Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazil’s Government, the CCP reopen China’s Borders to chaos, and the US Speaker deals with political hi-jackers to secure his seat. All will have consequences and should make markets nervous.
Watch the Bond Markets. In bonds there is truth. Brutal, uncompromising, painful truth. When the crisis comes, it will hit bond markets first.
Markets are just enormous voting machines calculating the opinion of every participant, therefore no single “idiot” can drive them.. but they can certainly influence how the other participants vote.
Christmas is coming, but plenty still to think about in terms of markets; from the lessons on Covid re-opening in China, what Tesla’s shareprice tells about the resurgence of common sense, and the prospects of 2 years of dither into the very necessary general election the UK needs to move forward!
I’ve no idea what might happen in 2023, but I don’t think its going to be as bad as some expect, but neither will it be as rewarding as others predict. Its likely to be another year of trading on what the mood is, what the numbers mean, and hoping to call it right. Hope, as they say, is only a strategy when you simply don’t know!
Doom and Gloom dominates the economic mood. Analysts are predicting just how bad it will be next year – but easy money was the drug that fuelled the financial excesses of the 2010s, the market is still addicted to it, and the current dire sentiment is cold turkey..
There is a long list of contenders for financial idiot of the year. Who will win?
Jerome Powell signalled a slow-down in interest rate hikes – and markets loved it. But did he just make a long-term mistake by not decisively signalling the end of the era of monetary and market distortion? There are lessons to be learnt, not least being the role of inflation in a buoyant economy.
How will free-market economies resolve crashing discretionary spending, wage inflation and looming recession when income inequality is so blindingly obvious to electorates? Something has to change.
