{"id":2415,"date":"2021-02-17T12:40:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T12:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/?p=2415"},"modified":"2021-02-17T12:40:33","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T12:40:33","slug":"market-update-17th-february-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/2021\/02\/17\/market-update-17th-february-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Market Update &#8211; 17th February 2021."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row][vc_column][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1NjAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGX3VYRnhfU0V4VFklM0ZyZWwlM0QwJTIyJTIwZnJhbWVib3JkZXIlM0QlMjIwJTIyJTIwYWxsb3clM0QlMjJhY2NlbGVyb21ldGVyJTNCJTIwYXV0b3BsYXklM0IlMjBjbGlwYm9hcmQtd3JpdGUlM0IlMjBlbmNyeXB0ZWQtbWVkaWElM0IlMjBneXJvc2NvcGUlM0IlMjBwaWN0dXJlLWluLXBpY3R1cmUlMjIlMjBhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lM0UlM0MlMkZpZnJhbWUlM0U=[\/vc_raw_html][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Economic data releases have been light so far this week given a number of markets have been closed (for example, the US was closed on Monday for President\u2019s Day, while a number of east Asian markets have been closed for the Lunar New Year).<\/p>\n<p>However, this has done little to stop those equity markets that have been open from moving higher, thanks to continued reflation optimism due to the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine and US fiscal stimulus.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the fact that the media would have us believe that the UK is about to see a surge in unemployment and has lots of empty ferries and lorries thanks to a massive drop in trade since Brexit, the UK\u2019s FTSE-100 has been a big winner this week.\u00a0 Thanks to the UK\u2019s faster vaccine rollout, along with government and central bank support, an easing of the lockdown restrictions is now clearly visible on the horizon \u2013 which should lead to a sharp economic recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally (and more importantly), the FTSE-100 will be a big beneficiary of the global economic recovery, as mining and energy companies account for just over 20% of the FTSE-100 \u2013 and commodity prices continue to rally strongly on reflation optimism.\u00a0 The oil price in particular is providing a strong tailwind, as cold weather in the US has cut a large percentage of US oil production \u2013 and thanks to recent OPEC production cuts, the oil supply\/demand appears to be back in balance after last year\u2019s coronavirus induced demand slump.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, yesterday (Tuesday 16 February 2021) both BHP and Glencore (diversified miners) announced results.\u00a0 Not only did both companies give optimistic trading outlooks, but in a sign of confidence, Glencore said it was reinstating its dividend and BHP increased its dividend pay-out to a record high.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Japan\u2019s economic recovery held up better than economists expected.\u00a0 While Japanese GDP growth in the final quarter of 2020 was inevitably going to be slower than the massive 22.7% quarter-on-quarter growth in Q3, Q4\u2019s GDP increase of 12.7% was much higher than the 10.1% economists had expected.\u00a0 While Q1 2021 is likely to see a contraction given the coronavirus state of emergency that was called at the start of the year, the strength of Q4 suggests that we should see a rapid recovery in Q2 &amp; Q3 2021.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Investment Management Team<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n  <\/div> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economic data releases have been light so far this week given a number of markets have been closed (for example, the US was closed on Monday for President\u2019s Day, while a number of east Asian markets have been closed for the Lunar New Year).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2417,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415\/revisions\/2417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.wealthatwork.co.uk\/jpm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}