You can just about plot a discernable downward trend over the past year but there have been such significant peaks and troughs along the way few investors could honestly say they have a good sense of where things are heading next.
And then there is Janet Yellen and her Federal Reserve colleagues. First they dropped not-so-subtle hints of a June 2015 rate rise, then all signs pointed to September being the first move up. That was before big trouble in China hit and the rise was knocked back to December, when they finally pulled the trigger.
What happens next seems to be anybody’s guess, and Yellen has stretch the credibility of her ‘forward guidance’ to breaking point already.
To round things off, there is the oil price. US consumers are merrily benefiting from $30 oil and it is undeniably putting money through the tills of retailers and other consumer facing businesses. Any significant recovery in the price however, perhaps prompted by a rejuvenated OPEC doing a deal with Russia, could conceivably shock the economy into slump.
With all these moving parts perhaps the answer is just to move to neutral, but investors would be right to expect a good wealth manager to get off the fence and make a bolder call.
