Inflationary fears are growing and US rates continue to rise. Employment has become more flexible since the crisis of 2008/2009. Commodity prices have risen but from multi-year lows. During the next recession job losses will rapidly temper inflationary pressures.
The Federal Reserve continues to tighten and other Central Banks will follow. The BIS expects stocks to lose their lustre and bond yields to rise. The normalisation process will be protracted, like the QE it replaces. Macro prudential policy will have greater emphasis during the next boom.
Most people, especially Indians want to have their dream homes as soon as they can. Intense competition among banks (private as well as government banks) to acquire customers means it's easy to get a loan now than before. In addition, most people believe that property prices never fall. It's a belief...so no amount of reasoning can convince such people out of it.
In the long run stocks outperform bonds. For a decade stocks, bonds and real estate have risen in tandem. The risk of a substantial correction is high. Value-based equity investment is unfashionably enticing.
Rising interest rates and inflation are spooking financial markets. Unemployment data suggests that labour markets are tight. Central Banks will have to respond to a collapse in the three asset bubbles.
The India-optimists opine that the negative effects of demonetization have subsided. Initial glitches in GST implementation are now over. Together Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) should put a check on bad loans despite the delaying tactics used by loan defaulters, and bank credit to the industrial sector will be back to normal.
India boasts about its demographic dividend, but this dividend cannot be taken for granted in the face of high rates of youth unemployment, underemployment, disguised unemployment and skill deficit-low productivity and low wages trap of the informal sector. And while India does have a large and growing number of graduates, their quality, skill and employability remain a serious concern.