Quarterly Update: December 2020
The global economy has faced one of the most difficult years since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Unprecedented increases in unemployment and dramatic falls in GDP growth spared no country around the world. In saying this, equity markets have been able to look through this period by pricing in the COVID-19 impacts as temporary. Relative to the economic impacts, equity markets have performed strongly from March 2020.
Whilst all major global markets have not beaten their highs from February (priced in Australian Dollars), there has been a significant rebound nonetheless especially in the Emerging Markets and US markets. In US Dollars, both of these equity indexes reached all-time highs during this period.
Over the last quarter as the year 2020 came to a close, the ASX 200 increased 7.95%. This was followed by Emerging Markets finishing up 7.18%, Europe also gained 5.4% and the United States was slightly positive with 1.1%, all priced in Australian Dollars1.