2021: Midyear Commentary

Every January we publish an annual outlook where, among other things, we offer some views about what might be in store for markets and the economy in the year ahead. Last year we – along with the rest of the known world – got kind of sideswiped on this. All those predictions in the middle of January were upended by the coronavirus pandemic that followed shortly thereafter. The year turned out to be nothing like what anyone would have reasonably thought. And even if you could have guessed that a virulent disease would sweep the globe and bring the world economy to its knees, you would be forgiven for not guessing that world stock markets would stage a rally for the ages in its wake. Or that the country where the pandemic began – China – would snap back so quickly that its actual GDP growth for 2020 was barely different from where economists had predicted it would be before the pandemic hit. Or any number of the year’s other bizarre twists and turns.