The major equity markets certainly had a tough first day back. A familiar story came in from China, where weaker manufacturing data and concerns over the potential end of a ban on big institutions selling prefaced a steep drop in China's CSI 300 Index. As programmed through new market 'circuit breakers', this rush for the exits triggered a suspension of trading and reverberated in other markets. The FTSE 100 made its worst start this century, down 2 per cent, while a rush for perceived safe havens saw investors snapping up bullion.
So one of the negative trends of 2015, a China-led slowdown in emerging markets, shows its hand early in 2016. At home, the 'march of the makers' continues to slow, with manufacturing PMI hitting a three-month low of 51.9 in December, at the bottom end of expectations, with a drop in demand in emerging markets and a struggling eurozone thought to be important factors. On the PMI measure, anything over 50 reflects expansion.
This slow going is pushing back predictions of when the Bank of England will follow the Federal Reserve and raise interest rates. For companies, a delay in the rate hike would provide a benefit in extending the period of low borrowing costs. Indeed, the Institute of Directors has been predicting a pullback in corporate profits this year as a rise in interest rates kicking off in the second quarter starts to drag on the bottom line.
At a global level, signs are that the 'new mediocre' economic recovery will continue. "The overall picture globally is one in which both growth and inflation will remain subdued against a background of several years of very low money and credit growth," concluded asset manager Invesco Perpetual's chief economist, John Greenwood, in his market outlook.
Meanwhile, another persistent headache of last year worsened, this time geopolitical worries. Tensions in the Gulf escalated with a handful of Saudi Arabia's regional allies joining it in cutting diplomatic ties with Iran. The Sunni state executed a Shia cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, provoking an attack on its embassy in Tehran, with Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promising "divine vengeance". These hostilities sent the oil price higher on Monday 4 January, with Brent crude reaching $38 a barrel. On Wednesday, North Korea stoked east Asian tensions, claiming it had carried out its first underground test of a hydrogen bomb.
If private investors cannot escape the negative trends of last year, can they count on the positive trends to continue? Front of mind is what my colleague Jonas Crosland labelled the housebuilders' "gravy train", which he predicts has every reason to continue rolling: not least due to the continued imbalance between supply and demand that is supporting companies' record order books.
Private investor Diana Patterson, who tweets @DianaEPatterson, also thinks that there is life in these companies yet, if housing demand keeps up. Though close to peak, "[they] have further to go ahead of the spring selling season," she posted on Twitter. The housebuilders will also benefit from any delay to a rise in interest rates, being a sector that is vulnerable both to a rise in the cost of lending and the cost of borrowing for homebuyers.
What of the potential impact of policymakers on these companies' prospects? With Labour's defeat at the general election, the threat of rent controls on private landlords and a "use it or lose it" policy for undeveloped land has receded. Instead, the Conservative government's Autumn Statement, delivered in November, promised to pay developers £2bn to build starter homes for first-time buyers. The new mantra? 'We are the builders.'
So is it all good news for the big players? Not quite. The government has this week shared its plan to build up to 13,000 new homes on public land, up to 40 per cent of that affordable housing, but this is aimed at small, local developers. Communities secretary Greg Clark took to the airwaves to bemoan the fact that half of the housebuilder market is made up of the eight biggest companies (competition that looks positively rabid compared with retail banking), rather than the smaller builders' heyday of the 1980s.
Nothing but hot air from a government ideologically wedded to the aspiration of home ownership, and managing an economic recovery partly built on rising house prices? Perhaps. It will take more than 13,000 homes across five sites to change the dynamics of the housing market. But it is a signal that the major housebuilders may not have it all their own way.
At the time of writing, the major equity markets were struggling to make up the lost ground. This does not look to be a year of quick fixes.
