The US market continues to defy the naysayers with another impressive year of performance. The S&P500 has risen 24% YTD total return (31% in A$), a return that is comfortably ahead of both the rest of world equities and our local market. Outperformance has been skewed toward the second half of the year, helped by strong performance from big cap US tech as well as a resurgent US$.

The emergence of the Omicron COVID variant alongside a more hawkish pivot from the US Fed has raised uncertainty levels a notch as investors head toward year-end.

With a surge in case numbers in Europe signaling the start of a potential 4th COVID wave and cases on the rise in the US we assess the economic and market impact, and assess how Australia is likely to comparatively fare.

At present, we believe gold holds a degree of appeal in a portfolio context as cash and fixed interest offer very low yields. We outline the rationale for an allocation to gold allocation given the prevailing backdrop of very low interest rates, elevated equity markets and asymmetric inflation risk.

While there has been an understandable focus on the outlook for inflation and interest rates in recent months, earnings are a key blank in the global equity outlook. We examine the latest batch of earnings results in the US and Europe and the outlook for 2022.

While the RBA maintained its cash rate and left the pace of QE unchanged, it did announce it is dropping its yield curve control policy along with its guidance for no increase in the cash rate until 2024. While the RBA has conceded some ground, it continues to emphasise patience.

After plunging to multi-decade lows in mid-2020, global energy prices have soared in recent months. Multiple factors on both the demand and supply side have combined to drive up the price of oil, and even more dramatically gas and thermal coal prices.

High inflation readings across many economies in recent months has led to talk of “stagflation”. To help put investors’ minds at ease we detail why the characterisation of the current (or near-term) economic environment as “stagflationary” is a fair way wide of the mark.