Markets gyrated heavily last week, commodities spiked, then stalled, while equities sold off and then bounced.

The sharp bounce back in early February for the headline indices on Equities will have come as a relief for many – although not for those forced to close positions or buy protection at the end of the month.

The markets appear to be having something of a re-run of early 2016, probably the last time that they worried about a tightening cycle.

The first few weeks of January have been as ‘bad’ as December was ‘good’, but much of this is a confusion between the headline numbers dominated by the megacaps and the reality beneath the surface, which is one of considerable rotation.

Traditionally, Year Ahead pieces tend to take the form of a laundry list of predictions about ‘key market variables’, alongside some narrative to support why these might be slightly above, or slightly below, the consensus.