You know you are a "Brexhausted" mommy when you spend your day (and sometimes nights) chasing Brexit madness and the rest of the time chasing a super-active toddler. At least my toddler understands when I say, "I think we are done for today, it's time to go to bed."
While that's been the state of life for the past year or so, there is no clarity on when and how things will start to get better. The last two-and-a-half years have been quite a dramatic time in British politics. But this phase of uncertainty is not just limited to the U.K. At a time when business leaders head to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the world is filled with uncertainty. The so-called developed nations of the world are embroiled in controversies, political instability and foresee an ambiguous path ahead.
The global economic policy uncertainty index — a gauge of uncertainty across the world — hit record highs in December amid worries over the U.S. government shutdown, the China-U.S. trade war and Brexit negotiations, according to a report from Deutsche Bank.
The index, which goes back to January 1997 is a measure of global uncertainty calculated by complying data from 143 countries and is associated with greater economic policy uncertainty (EPU), stock market volatility, risk and lower GDP growth.
But this uncertainty is not just limited to the developed world. The index found that the level of uncertainty is significantly higher in developing countries.
The so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations are currently in a flux with each country facing a unique situation. While Brazil's economy is slowly coming to terms with a new populist president, Russia is still dealing with sanctions as well its dependence on oil. India is gearing up for general elections this year with concerns that the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi is losing ground and weak data from China is fueling fears of a slowdown in one of the world's largest economies.
Markets hate uncertainty of any kind and this has been quite evident in the stock market sell-off in the final quarter of 2018. But the uncertainty is far from over and while a bit of optimism over U.S.-China trade talks may have driven stocks slightly higher, larger concerns continue to linger. For now, I will let markets chase a bunch uncertainties in 2019, while I continue to run after my super-active toddler.
