Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Vaporous Volatility


You will have been hard pressed to have avoided stories of an apparent ‘imploding’ of stock markets over the last 10 days. It’s a negative story so our media jump all over it.

 
Yes there have been some volatile days that have seen some stock markets fall by over 4% in a day’s trading……including the largest economies across the world. But what our ‘doom addicted’ media have failed to explain, is the positive long term reason that sparked the sell off.
 
The first Friday of each month is a big deal for investment analysts and investment markets as it is when the US announce their latest job data. Positive data that shows unemployment reducing and wage growth increasing is seen as a positive indicator that the world’s largest economy has the right ingredients to grow (and vice versa). The most recent job data announcement was good……but investment analysts and investment markets thought it was too good!
 
The concerns are that the Fed / Bank of England et al will need to raise interest rates quickly and significantly to stop a potential inflation issue. Increasing interest rates then hinders business growth as the cost of servicing debt is more……stunting growth as a consequence.
 
The long and short of it is this……Trump’s tax cuts for businesses seem to have had the desired impact he wanted. More people are employed and wage growth is increasing.
 
Surely, our media can see the long term benefits of this rather than scaremongering on the back of very short term investment market volatility?
 
When did it become so unfashionable to report something good?

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