As Brexit chaos reigns here, across the channel things aren't looking too good either. So what's gone wrong, and are Europe's prospects set to improve?
Lothar Mentel examines the economic prospects for Britain as Brexit weighs on growth forecasts.
Lothar Mentel discusses a lesser known headwind for emerging market economies.
Lothar Mentel is chief executive and chief investment officer of Tatton Investment Management, a platform based discretionary fund manager with over £5bn of private client investments across more than 30,000 portfolios. Lothar’s investment career spans over two decades, he created the multi-manager range at Octopus Investments, designed and launched the Barclays Multi-Manager fund range and has held senior roles at NM Rothschild, Threadneedle and Commerzbank Asset Management.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has reaffirmed its commitment to begin winding down quantitative easing (QE) operations by the end of the year.
This is despite what looks like choppy waters between now and the planned December end date. At a conference in Frankfurt on 25 October, ECB President Mario Draghi signalled that the bank wouldn’t be deterred by Italy’s looming confrontation with Brussels, Brexit risks or the current rout in capital markets.
The global trading environment has clearly changed since Donald Trump became President.
Trump's recent claim that he has achieved “more than almost any other administration in history” caused tittering from the world leaders gathered at the United Nations general assembly. While that statement is debatable, one thing he has done is to create turmoil with his America First trade war.
Recently we have seen the S&P 500 hit an all-time high, with much of the media hailing it as the longest lasting bull market recorded for the US market.
We see the latter record as debatable given the lack of agreement about what constitutes a bear market, which is clearly required to define the starting points of previous bull markets. Yet nevertheless it's worth having a closer look at the drivers behind, and potential catalysts for, change of the current one.
There are reports that Bank of Japan (BoJ) governors are considering changing certain key aspects of their monetary policy.
Since 2013, the bank has used a host of unconventional measures to spur inflation to the 2 per cent target – to little avail. Inflation in Japan hasn’t met the 2 per cent level since 2015, and has largely been at or around the zero mark for the past few years.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has been upbeat about the UK economy.
At a speech in Newcastle last week, the BoE chief said: “The incoming data has given me greater confidence that the softness of UK activity in the first quarter was largely due to the weather, not the economic climate.”
Whether having voted Remain or Leave, the lack of meaningful progress in Brexit talks and the effect this has on the UK economy is not good news.
As recent economic data releases reveal, both consumers and businesses are adapting to uncertainty by changing their behaviour and reducing their spending. This is hurting economic growth.