Economic signals are always mixed. If everyone is getting a pay rise, inflation will be eating most of them up.
If the stock market is ticking along nicely, then the housing market will be in the doldrums.
The best that can be said for the wider present circumstances is that they are static, a bit stuck in the mud.
There’s plenty of bad news to go around, but so long as people remain mostly employed, they will muddle through.
What then, to make of the holiday market, which seems immune to almost all levels of pessimism.
We just returned from two weeks in Tenerife we couldn’t really afford, indeed we’ll be paying for it for some time to come.
It wasn’t a cheap holiday in the first place yet all around us were people who are either loaded or just playing an extended game of “to hell with it”.
Holiday companies have had a bumper year. What the airlines and travel operators say is that the annual family holiday, post Covid, has become regarded as a necessity.
People will feed their pets and they will go abroad for some sun – everything else, gym membership, Netflix, pints at the pub – are entirely cuttable.
If you are TUI Travel, Jet2 or easyJet that’s a nice spot to be in, but it isn’t entirely reflected in share prices.
Easyjet stock is up 15% in the past year, but is still down 68% on five years ago, before Covid struck.
Global warming fears and this summer’s wildfires that saw thousands evacuated must surely play on the minds of future holiday makers.
No one who holidayed anywhere near those fires wants to risk being caught in it again. Maybe the staycation, or at least much shorter flights to places less at risk of catching fire, will catch on this year. In which case, sell easyJet. Summer’s over.
