We suspect that many market participants have viewed the major central banks’ various “extraordinary measures” that have been adopted since the financial crisis of 2007-8 as having been a good thing.

There is apparently a saying in the UK’s Parachute Regiment that after you have jumped out of the plane you simply have to accept whatever landing you get.

It has of course become something of a tradition to do a ‘year ahead’ piece covering themes that could potentially shape the investment landscape and, with this in mind, we have decided to offer our thoughts on just what may lie ahead over the course of what we suspect is going to be a particularly interesting year.

It must be remembered that 2015, like 2014 and 2013 before it, was supposed to be the year in which the US and indeed other consumers finally threw off the shackles of the Post GFC era and raised their level of spending on the back of falling energy prices and rising housing and property wealth

In this month's column economist Andrew Hunt looks at the future trends for currencies of commodity producing nations like New Zealand.

World trade prices are currently falling at probably their fastest pace since the dark days of the Global Financial Crisis and, in so doing, they are imparting a significant deflationary bias to the world economy. We find that even in some of the world’s strongest economies such as the US and the UK, as well as here in New Zealand, retail prices are either simply falling or rising at a much slower pace than many would have expected.

Economist Andrew Hunt looks at the European Central Bank's decision to try quantitative easing and asks whether it is enough to save the European economies.