Eurozone stress has been felt most acutely in the so-called periphery, but investors should look at the core of the European Union.

At first quantitative easing offered palliative care to the global economy – now the patient is finally reviving.

If you want to kill the conversation at a dinner party, one sure-fire winner is pensions, but it is the $25.2 trillion in pension assets that fuel global capital markets and there needs to be some serious thinking on how they will work in the future.

Despite political shocks, the issuers of ‘safe’ government debt will continue to have the upper hand over the bond vigilantes, and the great financial repression will continue.

The fear of a debt deflation cycle stalked markets last summer and forced a new round of monetary intervention.

The belief in the self-healing genius of financialised capitalism has been irrevocably shaken. The memoirs of Alan Greenspan and Mervyn King tell the tale.

Central bank policy has evolved from unorthodox to downright strange as politicians have failed to take control of the post-crisis economy. Sooner rather later they will confront a stark choice signposted Greece or Ireland.

Monetary authorities still have ammunition aplenty. Recent inflation readings in the US and Sweden also suggest the deflationary doom-mongers are wrong.

Fears of a 1980s-style debt crisis in emerging markets are overblown. But to clear the miasma of statistics, investors would do as well to understand the sentiment of their peers as well as the credit fundamentals of their investments.

The global savings glut will continue to buoy markets, for now. But all sins come at a price.

Banking supervisors and other regulators are determined to bring so-called shadow banking within their purview.

The prospects for industrial metals is a weighty subject. Investors that blithely believe price corrections revert to mean may be looking at a false dawn.

The bull market that began in March 2009 is flagging, but the overwhelmingly negative narrative from many strategists and commentators is overdone.

The wisdom of ages needs to be heeded by bankers, investors, policymakers and regulators alike if we are to avoid lurching from crisis to crises, to the end of days.

Four intellectual revolutions have undermined our sense of self, but anomie and profits are not incompatible.

China’s bid to join the currencies in the IMF’s SDR basket is more than a footnote of interest only to economists. Policymakers should take note.

We have become addicted to debt. With the global economy slowing, Andrew Capon fears another severe bout of repression.

So far in 2015 we have been witnessing death by a thousand policy rate cuts around the world. That is turning the US Federal Reserve’s dream of rate normalization into a dystopian nightmare.

The pretence of knowledge is the curse of the financial world, especially when we live in such uncertain times. There are very few certainties left.

The record books have multiple new market landmarks to note so far in 2015. Investors should be wary, it will be a rollercoaster ride and there may be nausea ahead.

How did the relationship of the Swiss franc and the euro turn out to be purely platonic? Conscious uncoupling was perhaps inevitable.

Markets ended 2014 beset by fear. Deflation is now a global concern and the doomsayers see rapidly falling commodity prices as the canary in the coalmine. But the nattering nabobs of negativism are wrong.

A war of all against all in currency markets will not be pretty. For some countries it may also be too little, too late. The International Monetary Fund has failed in its role as the arbiter of currency values.

Investment is easy when you can immanentize the eschaton. But even radioactive assets such as uranium can be worth running a Geiger counter over.

Since the US Federal Reserve met in September the data has been tortured and every word pored over. Why are we in awe of the crystal ball gazing of supposed experts?

Unless there is an accelerated plan for full political and fiscal union, the next eurozone crisis could prove existential.

Like an alcoholic that believes another drink can do no harm, the Federal Reserve has not learnt the lessons of the global financial crisis. Once more it seems determined to mop up only after the next bubble bursts.

There is a bull market in asset prices and a bear market in volatility. Central banks are driving both. But policy is starting to diverge and this happy, if eerie, equilibrium will soon end

The global financial crisis might mark the beginning of a broader realization that global hyper-capitalism has reached its limits. The failure of the AstraZeneca/Pfizer merger shows that, for good or ill, a backlash has begun.

The Federal Reserve is playing mind games by trying to persuade investors that the biggest danger to economic stability is deflation. It is both disingenuous and bad news for the dollar.