May was the month when you could be forgiven that there was only one event in the world that mattered: the continuing debate on the UK’s membership of the EU.
The tax affairs of the rich and powerful came under scrutiny in April, with a huge leak of confidential documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonsceca.
Another month, another dire warning from the economic great and good. In March it was the IMF’s turn to warn ‘economic derailment.’
February was another month where the problem for this commentary was what to leave out: the world is not short of ‘events’ at the moment.
Like a row of bottles, the world’s stock markets fell one by one – with one defiant exception among the twelve that we cover this month.
December saw an interest rate rise in the US, the UK vote for air strikes against IS and George Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ largely under water.
Well, what a splendid month October was, with all the major world stock markets that we cover in this Bulletin skipping merrily upwards. Germany and China led the way with gains of 12% and 11% respectively, and if you only looked at the figures you’d be quite justified in thinking that everything in the world economic garden was rosy.
The end of the third quarter of 2015 was, as all the financial press reported, the worst for global equities since 2011.
Never was the statement “Markets can fall as well as rise” more true than in August, when virtually all major markets headed down.
July was a busy month. Greece held a referendum on austerity – with an emphatic rejection, before a bailout on the same lines as the rejection was finally agreed. The Chancellor delivered his second Budget this year whilst Chinese markets fell dramatically.