Bond Outlook by bridport & cie, February 16 2011

There are so many negative factors facing the world economy that we find the relaxed tone of financial markets a cause of wonder. We recognise, of course, the desirability of “accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative”, advice which most politicians have been practising even before the Johnny Mercer 1945 song hit. There are a few Cassandra’s, often so extreme that they are not taken seriously, yet overall the scenario is neither so disastrous as such commentators claim, nor as optimistic as the establishment would have us all believe.