Riding 2021's Themes In Offshore Investing

Trader Petri explains his picks of the main trends he expects to see play out on the global markets in 2021.

- Petri Redelinghuys

2020 was one wild year. The pandemic, the lockdowns, the quick crash and recovery, the US election mess, our own local political mess … so much happened and so much took the world by complete surprise. 2021 should be much better, right? Well, six days into 2021 and the US Capitol was stormed by outgoing President Donald Trump’s supporters and the leader only seems to have asked them to “go home” because his advisers pressured him into making a statement. If that is any indication of what 2021 is going to be like, we are probably in for another wild ride. So, hold onto your hats, folks. The 2020s are here, and the world is going to change even more than it already has.

Each year we try to establish what the major market themes, or trends, will be in the year ahead. Last year we had a special shoutout to Tesla as our primary major theme was the continued rise of technology stocks. Although Tesla was our primary call last year, we never imagined that it would perform quite as well as it did. Technology also had a fantastic year as the global lockdowns drove global technological adoption at a faster pace than ever before in history. Online retail saw more growth in 2020 than it did in all the years leading up to it, combined. Truly mind-blowing stuff. The question now is, will that trend continue, or will another major theme emerge to drive markets in 2021?