Normally this time of year is characterised by slowing market activity, longer than usual lunches and partially deserted office buildings. Soon enough, you too will be off to sit on a meditteranean beach or taking the kids to enjoy Florida’s theme parks.
But you might want to scrap any plans you had of relaxing, with the oppressive heat of MiFID II bearing down on you, this will not be the calm, relaxed summer we’ve gotten used to.
There’s less than six months left until European investments and markets face what is arguably one of the biggest regulatory overhauls of any industry in history. The sheer scope and complexity are mind boggling and the clock is ticking, you really can’t ignore those emails for another week.
And it’s not just MiFID II, the political and macro-economic environment are also rather febrile these days. There are multiple rumours that Britain’s ruling Conservative Party is in for a summer of plots against its leader, Theresa May, after she lost her Parliamentary majority in a June general election. With Brexit negotiations having only recently kicked off, any political upsets in the UK have the potential to have wide-ranging impacts.
And elsewhere, economies continue to reel from the effects of the financial crisis even today. Growth in the west has remained sluggish, and despite some recent good news, even the Chinese economic powerhouse is slowing down as well. While markets have been relatively calm so far, the potential for some major world even to change that is ever-present.
You may now be wishing you hadn’t been reminded of the trials ahead, but thinking about them now and putting the quiet summer months to good use planning for the future will hopefully pay dividends when MiFID II hits in January.