It’s going to be a testing week for markets as a whole slew of negatives, challenges and no-see-ums threaten to overturn everything. It couldn’t look worse… unless of course you remember my key market mantra (read on), and that the sun usually comes up tomorrow. Happy Valentines.. 

Markets and data have been posting strong numbers, but all around are warnings on future outlook problems. Politicians are keen to claim victory over the pandemic, but the science increasingly points to Covid becoming a very long-lived problem and long-term threat to global activity

Markets are digesting what’s been a fascinating week in terms of swings, tensions and threats. Everything from Supply Chains, Taper and Inflation is on the radar as speculative assets swing widely. Maybe it’s time to sit back, step away and take time to consider the macro issues of recovery, and the micro issues about how the pandemic has altered behaviours. The UK’s bounce bank loans could highlight how the world has changed as massive defaults are expected.

Meanwhile, the AA goes straight to the top of my list of firms that should be wiped from the face of the Earth…

Markets anticipate the end of pandemic, but the news flow from India highlights ongoing global crisis and Covid is here for the long-term. The risk of political instability from failed Covid policies is high. In the UK, political instability could ratchet higher on the rising tide of Tory sleaze and Dominic Cummings taking his revenge cold.

Football, the beautiful game, is anything but pretty this morning. Could the mass-revulsion trigger something fundamental in terms of the shift towards stakeholder capitalism? Meanwhile, markets remain on highs, but there as signs the madness has gone too far. Do cracks in cryptos and over-priced stocks mean a wobble is coming? And, as the Shanghai Motor Show gets headlines – how deep is Tesla’s Moat? Not very…

Markets are celebrating spring, rebirth and recovery. The problem is the pandemic is not over, and may continue to cast is baleful malice over markets for decades. Meanwhile… would you appoint an ESG-compliant, full-on Woke gender & diversity championing Head-hunter to find you the next killer quant-trader?

Europe’s plans for a €1 trillion bond programme will create a single US Treasury scale market, but who agreed it? The big risks are the imperfect non-democracy’s funding programme will magnify political volatility, while empowering bad political deals.

Markets are priced for perfection in a very imperfect world. As stocks hit new highs, are the bulls or bears correct? Politics are likely to be the major influence on where we go next, but lurking around the next corner might just be inflation.

Markets look set to rally strongly into Q2, but are they over-exuberant? The rise in deaths and new strains in Brazil hints the Covid war isn’t won yet, there are rising political risks in Europe, and widening wealth inequality is apparent everywhere. Just how solid are our expectations of stability, renewed global travel and recovery if Covid is here for the long-term?

As Q1 wends to a close the threat of global recovery and higher rates overhang markets! Meanwhile, the market has spawned a whole new class of stocks: Trend Stocks - based on what we collectively believes about the future. Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) look set to benefit from Trend Stock status!