Welcome To The 2020

2020 is a year with much significance for many across the world.

For one, it marks the end of the 2010s – a decade which saw change and disruption at a pace never seen before. If you asked someone on 1 January 2010 to predict the decade ahead, certainly no one would have given an answer that would encompass the ups and downs that will herald 2020.

ECONOMY

The storm clouds that gathered over the economy in 2019 are looking even darker going into 2020. The US-China trade war, slumping exports, and slowing growth in key markets are dragging on optimism worldwide.

The American economy is currently in its longest expansion on record, but as the saying goes: what goes up, must come down. Economists are currently bracing for a recession that may be as bad, if not worse than the Great Recession of 2007-2008. In the Eurozone, many economies have yet to recover to pre-2007 growth rates. And with Brexit on the horizon, it will likely get worse as the British economy seeks to decouple from the EU.

Asian economies were spared the worst of the last recession, but all indications are there that the next recession will hit the region hard. Slowing Chinese growth and intraregional tensions are exacerbating what could be a recession to remember. Closer to home, emerging economies are likely to power through a recession, but any currency-related issues (like the spark that caused the 1997 recession) could slow or halt growth.

In response, central bankers are using ever more bizarre tools to keep the economy going. It is expected that looser monetary policy will be the norm going into 2020. One consequence of this is negative interest rates, where the benchmark deposit rate is below zero, punishing savers and rewarding borrowers. In Japan and throughout much of Europe, government bond yields are negative in an effort to get money flowing back into the economy.