Three major events during the past month:
1. Economic activity continues to show encouraging signs, with a confirmation of a slight upturn in investing (United States, eurozone, and Japan), and an improvement in trading (especially in Asia).
2. Monetary policies are still accommodating, but the debates over some of their components (the scale of interest rate hikes in the US, the continuation of QE, and negative interest rates in Europe) are driving – and will not stop driving – investment timelines and decisions
3. The political situation is getting complicated in the United States (President Trump’s wrangling with Congress, threats of impeachment proceedings) and is about to become clearer in Europe, with less robust «extremist» parties than anticipated. The PVV did not win the elections in the Netherlands, and the Front National is no longer leading in the polls in France.
