It felt too good to be true and maybe it was. The Panglossian optimism that prevailed in the markets over the summer has faded thanks to perceptions of weaker growth momentum in the global economy and, more especially, in those twin engines of global growth, the US and China.
Business and consumer confidence has waned, job growth has underwhelmed, energy prices have spiked and supply bottlenecks are everywhere. That, in turn, has given rise to growing concern about inflationary pressure.
Central bankers who earlier insisted that surging inflation was purely transitory are now having second thoughts, raising the possibility that they will soon reduce the support they have been offering to a recovery that now appears to be flagging. In a delicately revisionist phrase, Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, has talked of possible circumstances in which “transience would be longer”.