Market pulse: Stuart Fitzgerald on the key trends in the Irish SME sector

Permanent TSB has just appointed a new CEO. But, based on the detail of the Programme for Government, Eamonn Crowley faces a thankless task. The state can double down or cut its losses. But it can’t do both.

The Covid-19 virus has challenged orthodoxy in the most brutal way possible – and agri-business has been heavily impacted. However, one of Ireland’s indigenous business success stories, the Kerry Group, has provided a masterclass in running a food business in a time of crisis.

America’s 2020 crisis has extraordinary parallels with 1968. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy unleashed a summer of widespread civil disorder resulting in the November election of Nixon as the ‘law and order’ President.

In my evidence to the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee, I explained that we must consider tax rises to bridge the €30bn deficit and fund a €20bn stimulus. In a crisis, all bets are off, and all avenues of revenue-raising should be considered.

To understand predictability, you have to accept fragility. In the first of a new series, John Looby argues that Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s insights are perfect for this age of political and economic uncertainty.

The majority of policies agreed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party to achieve the transition towards a greener economy were already known from previous commitments or set in EU legislation. Yet a new level of ambition is emerging, with concrete actions most clearly spelled out in transport – and a lot left to be teased out in agriculture.

There will be many commissions, task forces, committees and action plans. But these are all subject to the fundamental rule that what is bought by the government must be paid for. As Tom Waits said: “The large print giveth, the small print taketh away”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has chosen confrontation over conciliation. As Covid-19 reshapes global supply chains, a more affirmative China offers both challenges and opportunities for Ireland, writes Ian Lahiffe in Beijing.

More than five trillion dollars is sitting in low risk/low yielding investments. Once the pandemic shows signs of stabilisation, we can expect that investors will put this money to work. Plus, the central bank stimulus will drive the market.

The political contortions in Britain and the US matter greatly to Ireland. But the unfettered weirdness of the past three months makes it clear that we need another election this summer.