It’s the start of another year and once again politics looms large in the minds of investors. At this point in 2019, it was “hard Brexit” (not to mention the spectre of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government). This year, it’s an escalation in the temperature of the conflict between Iran and the US. In this week's magazine, we look at what the latter could mean for markets and investors (we also look at the political fallout and delve into the workings of Iran’s economy ).
It’s worth remembering that geopolitics often doesn’t have the market impact that people fear. It’s easy to over-react, particularly when headline-writers have an incentive to grab our attention by being as aggressive as possible. Last year’s big concern is a case in point – for all of the hysterical columns that talked about “cliff edges” and imminent recessions, following the election of Boris Johnson last month we no longer need to worry about a Corbyn government and we should be heading for a relatively smooth Brexit (although there’ll be plenty of overhyped ups and downs throughout the process).
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