Economics

Vincent Boland: Growth is out, value is in as investors choose to shun risk

With such a fundamental shift in market conditions, are we heading for a recession – and if so, how deep? Not even the experts know the answer

New York Stock Exchange: oddly, market falls have happened even though the global economy, strictly speaking, is not in recession. Picture: Getty

Nobody knows anything. That was the motto of the acclaimed Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman, who worked on the not unreasonable assumption that people in the film business had no idea what it took to make a hit movie. They were all winging it.

The assumption seems to apply to the financial markets too. As he announced the latest rise in US interest rates last week, Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chairman and the world’s most powerful ...