All eyes still on the US during the coming year

There can be little doubt that the key issue for financial markets looking out over the course of the next 12 months is quite simply whether there will be a meaningful recovery in the US economy. If this proves to be the case, it should at the very least help to underpin equities at around current levels, if not drive markets higher. The principal risk, however, is that the excesses of the 1990s take rather longer to unravel and that, as a consequence, any pick up in business activity during 2002 is anaemic at best. On the face of it, the recovery story has much to commend it. The Fede...