With a client list of fund management firms that collectively manage more than $4trillion of investors money, Smithfield has good insights on market trends.

Each year, we ask a selection of clients to offer their views on the year ahead on the direction of markets, the trends that will dominate and the broader forces that will dictate asset prices.

This year, the views of investors demonstrate the greatest degree of consensus since we began publishing this book several years ago.

Although our clients which have contributed to this collection each focus their pieces on different asset classes, they are all cognisant of the same macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.