It took a devastating combination of the pandemic, war in Ukraine and a central banking U-turn on inflation to do it. Since the turn of the year the rules of the game in markets have been dramatically upended. Gone are those notorious acronyms Fomo (fear of missing out), Tina (there is no alternative to higher risk equities and credit) and BTD (buy the dip).
The ecstatic equity market response to what were initially seen as dovish signals in the US Federal Reserve’s tightening move this week quickly evaporated — a mere blip in what is now clearly a bear market. At least sanity appears to be returning to central bank policymaking.
Having offered no convincing rationale for the continuation of their asset buying programmes long after the 2007-09 financial crisis, the central banks are now committed to raising rates and shrinking their balance sheets. That holds out the hope that after years of overblown asset prices and mispricing of risk, the information content of market prices will once again become meaningful.