Gazing into ING’s crystal ball

Put aside the forecasts and the results. How does the climate feel to you?

Some – myself included - will be feeling optimistic about the year ahead, though cautiously so, of course. Others not so much, though in as naturally expectant sector as this, hope springs eternal. Always.

The next six weeks will be critical in setting the tone for ‘24 and perhaps beyond. And events over the next month and a half could just tilt industry glasses from half empty to half full. 

Here’s how things might play out. 

On Thursday the Bank of England monetary policy committee holds interest rates, warning that no one should be complacent about the battle against inflation. However, remarks from the governor at his post-report press conference are read as the clearest indication yet that rates will start to fall sooner rather than later. It’s enough to distract editors and commentators from the fourth anniversary of Brexit just 24 hours earlier.

Ten days later the Year of the Dragon begins. Surely the built environment year ahead holds health, strength, and good fortune too?

It’s Valentine’s Day, and encouraging inflation figures add further weight to the case for interest rate cuts sooner rather than later. London Fashion Week begins two days later and puts the capital on the global runway for all the right reasons. 

With the BAFTAs on 18 February, and the Brits a fortnight later, it’s a good month for London’s – and the UK’s - soft power. Let’s be honest; with Paris turning up the volume on its Olympic year, we need it.

Never completely out of mind, politics looms back into view. But don’t worry, it’s not all bad. 

On 22 February Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram – mayors of Mancester and Liverpool respectively - release their ‘manifesto’; 24 hours later it’s the Conservatives local government conference. Neither is to everyone’s satisfaction of course, but each adds to the feeling that we may be exiting a period of relentless domestic political instability. Globally these things are relative of course. In the US, Donald Trump’s first federal criminal trial gets underway on 4 March, 24 hours before Super Tuesday.

Back home, on 6 March, it’s the Budget, No huge giveaways but some, and certainly enough for the chancellor and the prime minister to make the case, if not that we’ve never had it so good, that it’s better the devil you know when it comes to the economy. A general election feels closer than ever.

Then, MIPIM. With no external shocks, and the sun shining, the mood is more positive on global investment flows than might otherwise have been expected. Paris’ Olympic fever is contagious, but London and the UK is buoyed by an encouraging six weeks. 

I wouldn’t be so bold as to call this a set of predictions, more a best-case scenario. I’ll certainly leave the betting to the many in this industry who head to the Cheltenham Gold Cup on the 15 March, the Thursday of MIPIM week. 

But it all sounds plausible, right?

Damian Wild
ING Managing Director