Sun, August 16 2026

5 years ago

How has the pandemic impacted secular trends, opportunities?

Yves Bonzon, Group Chief Investment Officer at Swiss Wealth Manager, Julius Baer talks to Gulf Insider on how the pandemic impacted secular trends and opportunities going forward. Did you see a major shift in trends from 2019 to 2020 due to the pandemic? The pandemic did not as much shift secular trends as accelerated them, and substantially at that. When we first formulated the key themes for this decade, we hypothesized the end of the neoliberal era was close and envisioned a new unorthodox policy template which places a greater importance on fiscal stimulus and debt monetization, as suggested by proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). The immediate policy response to the Covid-19 crisis was taken right out of that MMT policy toolbox – with governments rushing to implement massive stimulus programs, backed by central banks annihilating rates to their lowest levels, while pumping liquidity to support asset prices. Recently, the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, confirmed that the central bank will not even think about raising rates until they see the white in inflation’s eye. This is an extreme departure from the old policy paradigm. How has Covid-19 changed how you look at strategic asset allocation? The Strategic Asset […]

6 years ago

Survive or Thrive? Helping young people to be happy during a pandemic

At the start of a new academic year with COVID 19 continuing to affect the education of millions of students, as we continue to battle with the challenges and seize the opportunities, we are becoming more aware of the social and emotional impact of the pandemic on our young people. During these times, teachers across the region are doing their very best for their students, working hard to support their learning. In this new school year, we, at Britus Education, have a significant percentage of our students in Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia learning online, interacting with their teachers and peers ‘at a distance’. However, students are also in school and it has been my pleasure to visit classrooms and see children learning and enjoying the new term. However, there is something uncomfortable about watching a group of socially distanced children wearing masks and visors interact with each other and with their teacher. The current circumstances remind us very clearly that there is so much more to education than learning new knowledge – how can we, during a pandemic, provide our children with the social and emotional context to thrive and enjoy life? Whilst there may be a dearth of […]

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