The Plan B or not Plan B? That is the question
Equity markets bounced strongly on Tuesday. The catalyst was a flip in the coronavirus narrative that went: “the new variant is as contagious as the very first, but much less damaging. It confers some immunity. Triple boosted vaccines work well on it, at the same efficacy as on the other variants. Greater contagion will not overwhelm systems but will help the world live with the disease.”
Outlook 2022
In broad terms, we expect normalisation to be a key theme of 2022. For all the disappointments of this year’s stop-start global recovery, no one can doubt that business and consumer sentiment – as well as general ease of living – improved substantially from the depths of the pandemic. The bottom line is that, barring any further catastrophes, improvement should continue next year. We expect spending at the individual and corporate level to grow as movement of goods and people gets closer to pre-pandemic levels. Monetary policy is set to tighten along with the cyclical recovery, as the world’s central bankers have already suggested.