Investment outlook for 2022

At the start of a new year, I like to write an investment outlook for the year ahead as well as glance back at the year that has passed.

Summary of 2021 - a year of rotations

It was hoped that 2021 might be a year of recovery, but at the time of writing last year’s investment outlook, the UK was once again in a national lockdown as covid continued to spread. However as the vaccination programme gathered pace, particularly in the UK, there was a sense of optimism for 2022. Indeed, the average prediction by investment banks of where the S&P 500 would finish 2021 was 4142, which equated to a predicted annual return of 11.97%. That was almost twice the return predicted for 2020, which showed just how optimistic investment banks were, despite the fact that the economic fallout from the pandemic was far from over.