For many months, the Fulcrum global nowcasts have painted an extremely consistent picture of strong – and recently rising – cyclical growth, permeating all corners of the world. This regime of strong global expansion in real output has been the dominant driver of asset returns for the past two years.

The latest monthly report on the nowcasts is interesting because it suggests that the momentum of the boom may be beginning to fade a little. But so far the evidence of weakness is geographically patchy and it does not suggest that the 18-month period of above-trend global growth has ended. 

A pause for breath may be a favourable development for the eventual sustainability of the expansion, since it reduces the risk that a runaway cyclical boom will blow the lid off world inflation. The nowcast models have been anticipating some mean reversion in global growth during 2018, though it may be happening earlier than expected by the models.