What the return of the old normal could mean for your money

News of a potentially very effective vaccine has cleared a massive cloud that was hanging over 2021, with life returning to normal sooner rather than later. John Stepek explains what that means for the markets and for your money.

Times Square, New York
With an effective vaccine, life could return to normal
(Image credit: © David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Just before I get started this morning – on Thursday, David Stevenson and I will be talking to Charlotte Ransom of Netwealth along with Jane Lewis, City Editor of The Week, about the challenges facing investors in these turbulent times, and how to overcome them. Sign up here to view live or to have access to the recording to watch at your leisure.

Markets had a day of wild moves yesterday. And for once, it wasn’t to the downside. Oil soared by 10% at one point. Value stocks rocketed. Big Tech stocks wilted. Airlines saw gains of upwards of 20%. Office Reits jumped higher. Bond yields rose (so prices fell).

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.