Graph 2  These are encouraging developments and provide a reasonable basis to expect that this year will be better than last year. Having said that, it remains possible that the expected pick-up in growth is derailed by a re-escalation of the trade and technology disputes. Another, more recent source of uncertainty is the outbreak of the coronavirus, which I will discuss shortly.
Thus, central banks and financial markets are looking at the same data on macro fundamentals to make inferences about the future path of the economy, and, of course, any decisions on the policy path made by the central bank will influence asset prices through the discount factor.