Shifting sands

Inflation, trade wars and euro debt are among the potential headwinds for the world’s economy in 2019, but that doesn’t mean the overall global picture is necessarily a negative one.

If 2017 was the year of synchronised global growth, 2018 was the year the global environment diverged as the US powered ahead while the rest of the world stumbled. Ten years into a record-length recovery and attendant bull market in the US, the divergence between the strong US economy and rest of the world, along with a determined Federal Reserve (Fed), ultimately roiled global equity markets from Beijing to London to New York.