TALKING STOCK
RICARDO SMITH: Why markets look disjointed from the economy
Market cycles tend to move ahead of economic cycles as participants try to predict future earnings
It is generally accepted that corporate earnings growth is inextricably correllated to economic growth. Similarly, there is a correllation between a country’s savings and investments rate and its gross fixed capital formation, all of which contribute to economic growth. However, markets can certainly feel disjointed from what is happening in the real economy.
The past few years have been among the toughest from an economic perspective: geopolitical tensions, US-China trade wars, the Russia-Ukraine crisis, turmoil in the Middle East, the Covid-19 pandemic. Locally we have had an energy crisis, railway and logistics challenges, high levels of unemployment and inequality, civil unrest, floods, credit ratings downgrades and greylisting. Furthermore, we have seen inflation spiral out of control in most parts of the globe with central banks needing to implement aggressive monetary tightening to curtail it...
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