Housing market: still hot property

Markets and the public are eagerly anticipating the economic recovery, when last year’s lockdown bust will make way for the post-pandemic boom in growth. A combination of incredibly supportive monetary and fiscal policy, together with a rapid vaccination programme in the UK and US (and now belatedly picking up steam in Europe), has led to…

Markets shrug off German political drama

For well over a decade, Germany’s political system has looked the picture of stability. Chancellor Angela Merkel has reigned for so long she is often considered the de facto leader of Europe as well as its largest nation – her tenure marked and prolonged by a history of compromise and coalition with Germany’s other leading…

Hold on tight for a gangbuster earnings season

As parts of the world economy slowly opens up, capital markets are pushing ever higher. That investor optimism has been a mainstay since the dramatic sell-off a year ago, driven by huge amounts of monetary and fiscal support, and the hope that global growth will come through in full force after the pandemic. But after…

Centrist Biden puts global taxation in his sights

In the long run-up to last year’s US election, Joe Biden was seen as the uninspiring compromise candidate. An old establishment Washington D.C. type, with decades of top-level political experience and firm centrist credentials. Now President, he fended off challenges from the left of the Democratic Party and gave observers a sense that the status…

Stock markets firmly looking ahead – Q1 2021 review

n our private lives, the first few months of 2021 were much the same as 2020 – unfortunately. Britain, and indeed the world, suffered more COVID cases, more fatalities and, once again, tighter restrictions. For investors, though, it was a different story. Despite a global economy frozen in motion and the deepest recession ever recorded,…

Bond markets signal economic optimism

Following a strong first quarter for equity investors worldwide, the second quarter is off to a good start as well, with most global stock markets already up by a few percentage points. While the sense that stock markets are potentially getting ahead of themselves is nothing new, the renewed surge of large-cap US tech stocks…