Well, gather round folks because it seems like the Great Wall of Shares, also known as the FTSE 100, just slipped a bit, coming in at a mild 0.5% after a particularly unsettling economic fortune cookie. It seems Mr. Too-Many-Bowls-Of-Noodles kung-fu kicked us in the financial shins with a far-from-spectacular report card for June. Apparently, the services PMI came back grading a C-minus, well below the “Make parents proud, get an A” expectation.
This slight wobble of the shares’ feng shui is also partly due to a raging game of tech-trade Pong between Uncle Sam’s Boys and his Chinese counterparts. Ah, a nostalgic round of ping-pong diplomacy, if you will, albeit this time around it’s about who’s Bluetooth speaker sings louder. Polarizing indeed, but this thorny bush wasn’t part of the Great Wall’s green aesthetics until today.
The two superpowers, transmogrified into tech-bully sidekicks, are lashing out over each other’s digital toys. Imagine if you will; it’s like the time your sibling accidentally broke your favorite action figure, but instead of your mom stepping in, now it’s the entire global stock market. Fun, right?
To bring this hilarity back to earth, our Wall of Shares seemed to have tripped up on an unexpected pebble, joining a conga line of wallet-clenching headlines. It’s down, but certainly not out, for now. While June might come off as somewhat of an Asian bear hug to the British bulls, some are convinced it’s merely a Dragon dance before the big celebration.
Learning to deal with these economic faux pas may simply require adjusting our monocles and reevaluating our high-risk, high-reward strategies. Maybe the economic forecasts all need to consider adding a pinch of Asian spice or toning down the heat in the Americas. Or perhaps, it’s time for a tech time-out to simmer down this brawl without boarders.
As we draw the curtain on this cirque du financia, remember folks, it’s not all doom and gloom. A fall may hurt but it also offers a brilliant view of the sky. Perhaps, in hindsight, the Great Wall of Shares needed this little trip to remember it was built to withstand. So here’s hoping our favorite share titan gets its groove back before the fortune cookie crumbles entirely.
