Day: January 8, 2020

Five links today to articles that were written recently about how things might pan out in 2020. Sticking one’s neck out and making predictions is difficult enough for relatively small issues – trying to guess where the global  economy might end up is something I would never want to do. Kudos to those who try!

1. “As tempting as it is to dwell on current financial and macroeconomic conditions, doing so risks obfuscating a key element in the outlook for the future. There is a curious contrast between the relative clarity of expectations for the near term and the murkiness and uncertainty that comes when one extends the horizon further – say, to the next five years.
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   Moreover, in the years ahead, the United States, having notably outperformed many other economies, will decide whether to continue disengaging from the rest of the world – a process that is at odds with its historic position at the center of the global economy.”
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   Mohamed A. El-Erian wrote this article about the outlook for the global economy in the middle of December 2019, and well, things change quickly.
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2. “The uptick in global growth for 2020 is driven by emerging market and developing economies that are projected to experience a growth rebound to 4.6 percent. About half of this rebound is driven by recoveries or shallower recessions in stressed emerging markets, such as Argentina, Iran, and Turkey, and the rest by recoveries in countries where growth slowed significantly in 2019 relative to 2018, such as Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. There is, however, considerable uncertainty surrounding these recoveries, especially when major economies like the United States, Japan, and China are expected to slow further into 2020.”
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   This was written in October 2019, by Gita Gopinath. The IMF’s prognosis is one of a subdued recovery for the global economy as the best case scenario.
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3. “For the professional prognosticators and market mavens of Wall Street and beyond, there is at least one easy prediction to make about the next 12 months: Investors are going to earn less. A lot less, probably.“The double-digit returns of 2019 will be hard to repeat” is a phrase littering almost every investment outlook for global markets in 2020. Despite the trade war, political turmoil and more, virtually all major assets just posted a once-a-decade performance, and even uber-bulls know the chances of repeating the feat are slim.”
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   Bloomberg thinks financial markets the world over will struggle to put in the kind of performance that we saw in 2019. A good summary of a lot of global outlooks.
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4. “In 2020 Asia’s GDP will overtake the GDP of the rest of the world combined. By 2030, the region is expected to contribute roughly 60% of global growth. Asia-Pacific will also be responsible for the overwhelming majority (90%) of the 2.4 billion new members of the middle class entering the global economy.The bulk of that growth will come from the developing markets of China, India and throughout South-East Asia and it will give rise to a host of new decisions for businesses, governments and NGOs. The pressure will be on them to guide Asia’s development in a way that is equitable and designed to solve a host of social and economic problems.”
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   The World Economic Forum points to the fact (?) that Asia will produce more economic output than the rest of the world combined this year.
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5. “Just as the world economy was stabilizing after its worst performance in a decade, a U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed one of Iran’s most powerful generals is a jolting reminder of how fragile the outlook remains.A tentative trade agreement between the U.S. and China had buoyed expectations that global growth would start to rebound this year. Business confidence has slowly been improving as key manufacturing gauges show signs of bottoming out.

   Now, the U.S.-Iran flare-up could nip any positive sentiment in the bud.”
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   But, well. Happy new year!