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Quarterly Market Round-up

Flash Stats - Q2 2022

08 Jul 2022 - Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

In our regular market round-up, we take a look at what's happened in Q2 2022.

It was another challenging quarter for investment markets, with soaring inflation and tighter financial conditions weighing on the economic outlook and giving rise to fears of recession. Equity and bond markets posted negative returns; compounding what was already a difficult start to the year.

Some of the headlines in Q2 2022 include:

  • Consumer confidence surveys have plunged in the major
    advanced economies as inflationary pressures and higher
    borrowing costs squeeze consumer’s real incomes. The recent
    partial easing in Chinese COVID restrictions may bring some
    relief to strained supply chains, but corporates remain beset by
    product and labour shortages.
  • As inflation forecasts continue to rise, global growth forecasts
    remain on a downwards trend: June’s consensus forecasts global
    GDP rising 2.9% in 2022 and 2.8% in 2023, down from 4.1% and
    3.2%, respectively, at the start of the year.
  • Though remaining at a level consistent with modest expansion, developed market Purchasing Managers' Indices for June
    showed a more rapid deterioration, adding to evidence of a slowing pace of growth. Global output rose, driven by an easing
    of restrictions in China, but other major regions generally saw slower rates of expansion or even contraction.
  • While headline inflation continues to rise across developed markets, year-on-year US and UK core inflation, which excludes
    volatile energy and food prices, eased slightly, but remained elevated, at 6.0% and 5.9%, respectively. US and UK inflation
    pressures look more broad-based, owing in part to very tight labour markets, whereas a large proportion of eurozone inflation
    still relates to volatile energy and food prices, with Eurozone core CPI increasing to 3.8% year-on-year. Inflation is expected
    to remain elevated in the near-term and fall back more slowly than previously expected.
Flash Stats - Q2 2022

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