We are in scary times. On the stock markets, I can’t remember a period of such volatility. I’ve lived through periods of consistent downturns and, fortunately, periods of the opposite too. But this year, the indices have been up and down like a…well, you complete the phrase! Two of the most dramatic downturns coincided with me taking a break. First in the early weeks of August – See Whilst I was away. The SCS Index had reached 852 in July but ‘crashed’ by 16% to 712 during my August holidays. But then we saw it climb all the way back again to a new high of 858 at the end of Oct. as my colleague Mr Miller wrote in Share indices in October. Clearly time for another holiday for Holway. Since then the SCS Index has ‘crashed’ by 7.5%, again. My holidays are clearly jinxed.
This time, the downturn is affecting our ‘Boring’ companies too. Although not in the SCS Index, Capita has fallen 14% this month. See Capita has drawn battle lines in Life and Pensions market. If Capita are having difficulty getting customers to make outsourcing decisions and sign on the dotted line, then God help the rest of you. Across the board we hear not so much of cancelled contracts but of lengthening decision cycles. It’s even affecting us at TechMarketView.
But when even the Governor of the BoE admits that he ‘doesn’t know what is going happen tomorrow let alone next year’, you can understand why so many are wary to commit to investment.