Captain’s Blog – Interesting Times

Stock markets around the world surged yesterday with the FTSE up almost 5% and the Dow higher than it has been for a year. IAG the owner of British Airways surged by 35% in a single day. This on the back of news from our friends at Pfizer (see Discovery Park in Projects) of a COVID vaccine which is 90% effective. So, should we look forward to a lift off in the world of property? House-builders have been having a good time of it and most of the publicly traded ones benefited from the surge in markets today. As ever if you hold logistics assets you should be well placed as on-line retail continues to defy gravity and has been given another boost by Lockdown 2. Other use classes are harder to predict. Not many people are using their offices so what will tomorrows version look like. What about hotels with their public areas and buffet breakfasts. Will our habits change for ever or will we revert to type as soon as COVID is no longer at the forefront of our minds. Perhaps demographics can point us in the right direction. Young people by and large are sick and tired of COVID restrictions and seem willing to flout the rules imposed on us by Government. Will they move on and forget all about it or will they remember to socially distance. Given that they are tomorrows occupiers we need to second guess how they will react but we also need to be mindful of what further rules the Government may impose. The former is probably easier to do than the latter given the knee jerk reactions and contrary edicts issued by Government in the last few months (telling us all to go to the Canaries on holiday in October and then telling us ten days later that we can’t go on holiday at all is a good example – do Cabinet Ministers even speak to each other?)

Over on the other side of the Pond the US election has kept us entertained. A lot of people saw Biden’s triumph as a major step forward and given Trump’s irrational behaviour since perhaps it was. But, there always is a but – others are cautioning that Biden is no friend of either the UK or its Prime Minister. Seemingly he views Boris as a Trump clone and see’s Brexit as a threat to Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement and he is on record as being a proud Irishman and supporting a united Ireland. He also seems to favour a strong relationship with Europe over one with the UK and whilst the ‘special relationship’ between our countries has always seemed more special to us than to them we need to understand that the EU block is a bigger economic draw than the UK. Trump versus Biden – some would agree with Henry Kissinger’s summation of the Iran Iraq war … ‘It’s a pity both sides can’t lose’.