The big headwinds and tailwinds for global markets

Geopolitics is likely to play a big part in the direction of markets and investors must play close attention to events in Russia and the Middle East, according to Smith & Williamson's James Burns.

The dramatic slide in the price of oil continues to grab the headlines due to its impact on world growth -  negative for the producer countries such as Russia, but a big boost to consumers globally. The emerging market and Japanese economies have the highest positive leverage to a fall in oil, but the US, UK and eurozone should see a boost to growth of roughly 0.5%. The UK was the fastest growing economy in the G7 in 2014, however with consumer price index (CPI) inflation falling to just 0.5% a lot of pressure is being taken off the Monetary Policy Committee, and we do not expect interes...