For your summer reading enjoyment, we thought we would share some recent articles that caught our interest.

Reflation

There’s inflation. There’s deflation. And now, there has been talk over the last couple of months about reflation.

We all have a pretty good idea of what inflation is. When demand exceeds supply, prices rise.

Deflation is the opposite. When you have an abundance of supply and relatively sparse demand, prices fall. And naturally, we saw a lot of deflation in 2020. With people around the world stuck at home for most of the year because of COVID restrictions, large segments of the economy saw a major decline in demand.

So, what’s reflation? It is an act of stimulating the economy by increasing the money supply or by reducing taxes, seeking to bring the economy back to the long-term trend following a dip in the business cycle. Call it a normalization of the economy. And as 2021 advances, we are going to see the economy get back to normal. With every passing day, a couple million more Americans get vaccinated, and the restrictions that have kept a lid on growth continue to get lifted. This will only accelerate as new COVID cases fall.

Real yields are still deeply negative and the global economy is in the early stages of an expansion fueled by what seems like endless fiscal support. The risk of higher prices is still present.

Click to read the article.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/garthfriesen/2021/06/20/did-the-fed-policy-shift-destroy-the-reflation-trade/

Vaccinations

So far, so good. As of mid-June, vaccination rates are close to 50% in the United States and Europe, and over 60% in the United Kingdom. Japan is lagging, with just 15% of the population vaccinated, but should hit 50% by late August as the rollout accelerates. New, more contagious COVID-19 variants are spreading, but the good news is that the existing vaccines seem effective against these as well. This means the reopening should continue across the major developed economies through the second half of 2021. It also implies that the focus for markets has shifted to the strength of the growth rebound, the implications for inflation and the timing of central bank moves to taper asset purchases and eventually raise interest rates.

Click to read the article.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/july-2021-stock-market-outlook/

Volatility

Stock market volatility is a measure of how much the stock market’s overall value fluctuates up and down. The stock market was volatile in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was volatile again, to a lesser degree, ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. And so far in the first half of 2021, we have experienced some wild bouts of volatility.
The stock market swinging down at least once a year is not surprising. J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s chart of S&P 500 intra-year declines, peaks and calendar year returns shows that, since 1980, the market has been down (at some point) every year for the past 40 years.

Volatility can provide opportunities for investors.

Click to read the article.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/19/stock-market-volatility-can-be-a-good-thing-for-investors-heres-why.html