Geopolitics, and the 'end' of QE, are ushering in a new global economic era

Whether quantitative easing is an effective tool or if balance sheets of the central banks will shrink visibly in near future, one thing is very clear - the monetary, financial and geopolitical landscape has changed considerably, influencing many asset classes and ushering in a new economic era.

Contrary to popular historic imagination, Japan was in fact the birthplace of quantitative easing. It was first to implement the unconventional policy in 2001. But QE only entered the economic lexicon when the US Federal Reserve, followed shortly after by the ECB, BoE and BoJ, started the process of buying $600bn in asset-backed securities during the Great Financial Crisis. There are many ways of looking at this monetary policy tool - and it would be easy to write a dissertation about its effectiveness. But in short, these policy measures have entered the toolkit of central bankers an...