Guy Stephens: Playing chicken with this market could cost you dear

Bullish and complacent sentiment

clock • 6 min read

The effects of Brexit, Trump and the Italian referendum may have been short-lived but, argues Guy Stephens, market insensitivity and investor complacency should be a cause for concern

Market movements are usually influenced by four main factors - company fundamentals, macro and micro-economics, politics and investor psychology. At any one time, the first three of these can be more dominant or more recessive depending on developments and their magnitude. This then defines the ‘mood' of the markets, which is where investor psychology comes in. At the moment, as we are all very much aware, politics is the primary influence. It has been for much of last year and is almost certainly going to remain so for most of this year. This political noise initially generates uneas...

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