John Fahey: Taking stock of the Covid risks facing markets for the rest of the year        

The global economy looks well positioned to register a significant rebound in activity in the second half of the year but slow vaccine rollout in developing economies and the threat of vaccine-resistant virus mutations pose risks

An uplift in activity occurred amid progress on the rollout of vaccination programmes, thereby allowing restrictions to be eased. File picture

Despite the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic, the first six months of 2021 from a global macro and markets viewpoint, while not without challenges, were generally encouraging. On the macro front, the majority of economic releases from the main economies tended to surprise to the upside of expectations.

One factor behind this was that these economies proved more resilient than had previously been envisaged, and were better able to adapt to the restrictions that were in place to contain the virus during the early part of 2021.