As we look ahead, we would expect growth to slow down over the coming months and inflation to be ‘bumpy’ but ultimately on a falling trajectory throughout 2024. The US is proving to be resilient due to a stronger labour market but facing negative money supply and below trend consumer activity. We believe that China will start to see growth stabilising as they begin to tackle, again, the debt issue that dominates their property and local government sectors.
The Eurozone and UK may well be the weaker economies in the early stages of 2024, which might push central banks to start cutting rates. Declines in interest rates should help fixed income investments perform strongly into next year, along with equity markets as the recovery takes hold. We also are expecting further weakness in the US Dollar, which will further support rest of world equity markets.
There is, however, uncertainty as to the extent of any slowdown in growth and so we do expect further volatility in the first half of 2024, until policy support kicks in and puts sufficient momentum behind people’s risk appetite.
