What follows below are snips from a 35-page report by Saxo bank. I condensed the report for readability. Any emphasis in italics is mine. Until the final paragraph what follows are snips from various Saxo Bank analysts.
Enjoy.
End of a Cycle Like No Other – Steen Jakobsen – CIO
We are nearing the end of the largest monetary policy experiment of all time, and ascendant nationalism, staggering inequality, and a widespread loss of hope among the younger generation are among its varied fruit. The good news? Things only change when they absolutely must.
Q1’s brief volatility spasms notwithstanding, today’s capital markets are in a zombie-like state, with low volatility and extreme valuations in all assets with no net increase in growth and productivity, and a massive increase in inequality.
The benefits from the globalised system and particularly from the central bank’s asset-pumping response accrued near-entirely to the already wealthy, while the average economic participant lost out. This is the process that drove the advent of Brexit and Trump.
So now we have our first great new showdown since the Cold War, which saw the victory of capitalism over communism. Now comes the fight between nationalism and globalism. Nationalism is winning big, as country by country the outlook is turning inwards, with an increase in placing the blame on external forces from immigrants to the real and imagined misbehaviour of trade partners. Talk of trade policy and protectionism is now labelled “trade wars”.
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