Mid-year outlook: A slow, uneven economic recovery in the second half

Innovation is ongoing

Whether markets are up or down, innovation is ongoing

Necessity is the mother of invention. Perhaps the greatest modern example occurred in 1970 when the Apollo 13 astronauts created a carbon dioxide scrubber out of socks, duct tape and a few other random parts floating about their cabin.¹ But isn’t necessity a close cousin of adversity? The Dow just closed the book on its worst first quarter in 124 years² – if adversity has the potential to generate creative thinking, can we be expecting a burst of new inventions, businesses and services in the coming months? History suggests the answer is yes.

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Locked-in plans: understanding the basics

This is a three-part series focused on locked-in plans. In this series, you’ll learn the basics to help clients with these less-understood plans, explore pre-retirement and post-retirement plans and unlocking options, and get an overview of issues surrounding beneficiaries and creditors. Let’s first understand the basics in this part.

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Economic data shows improvement, but infection rates prove difficult to control

Two weeks ago, I wrote about some burgeoning “green shoots” that offered early, encouraging signs of economic recovery around the world. I’m pleased to see that more green shoots are sprouting – we continue to receive positive economic news as developed world economies progress in their re-openings. However, I’m also keeping an eye on some negative signs that could cause disruption.

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Near-term pullback, long-term uptrend

On March 13, 2020, we began talking¹ and writing² about a series of tactical market bottom indicators³ that showed signs of extreme risk-off positioning, which were positive from a contrarian perspective. One of those indicators was the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) equity put/call ratio. Little did we know it at the time, but ten days later, the S&P 500 Index would put in what now appears to be a major low for the cycle.

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Answering your questions on inflation, equity allocation and gold

I recently presented a webinar detailing the three scenarios that the Invesco Investment Solutions team believes could unfold over the coming 12 to 15 months. We created three brief videos that outline our Base, Bear and Bull case scenarios that I discussed. The webinar included a Q&A session, but we were not able to get to all of the questions within our allotted time. I would like to answer some of them here.

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