WATCH: The Week In Perspective

The JSE ended higher on Friday and US markets also managed positive closes, while bonds fell and the dollar looked set for its best week in a month.

Federal Reserve policymakers are ready to start cutting its asset holdings from May and are prepared to move rates higher 50 basis points at a time to curb inflation, meeting minutes and remarks from officials show. War in Ukraine and the shock wave it has sent through commodity prices, as well as lingering damage to supply chains from the pandemic has heaped even more pressure on consumer prices and is adding to a sense of a major shift in trends. Combine those and equity risk premium, no matter in which market, has to go up.

Risk of a populist upset in French presidential elections has also sent jitters through markets — dragging on French debt and the euro — ahead of the first round of voting on Sunday. The past two decades brought low inflation and a relatively peaceful world. But looking ahead geopolitical conflicts may become more volatile, and have more of an impact on the whole world's economy, as the chances of “slowbalisation” becomes increasingly likely. On the discussion panel are Warwick Lucas, head of Galileo Securities; Raymond Parsons, professor in the School of Business & Governance at Northwest University; and Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist at Alexforbes.

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