There could hardly be a more appropriate description for the first quarter of 2023 than the title of the movie that won this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture. It felt like some significant economic shift was happening every time you blinked – a rate hike, a collapsing bank, or a surge in the crypto sphere. In our 2023 Outlook, we had expressed the view that the consensus expectation of a weak first half and a robust second half is unlikely to play out. The market’s performance so far has validated our assessment.
