Posted by Barry Norris
By December 1974, in arguably the greatest crash of all time, the FTSE All Share index had fallen 70% from its 1972 high to its all-time low, trading on a dividend yield of 12.7% with a Price/Earnings ratio of 3.6x. “This bear market is the financial equivalent of the Great War”, read a 1974 year-end stockbroker report: “Lamps going out, end of an era, casualties numbered in millions, will it ever end?”
Posted by Barry Norris
We noted at the beginning of the year that all of the positive event risk in 2023 was likely to be front-end loaded: headline disinflation, China reopening, tech sector cost-cutting, peak central bank hawkishness; and that in contrast to the prevailing consensus, H1 was likely to be much better for markets than H2, particularly as economic growth and corporate earnings were likely to remain resilient and investor positioning already reflected chastened appetite for risk. This remains our view.
