Comment: Fast-forward to slow-motion future

In 2014, the Scotch whisky industry saw the first fall in the value of exports – down to £1.77bn at the halfway stage from £2bn – since 2009, largely due to economic headwinds in emerging markets.

It is entirely possible whisky exports won’t stage a dramatic recovery in 2015 as those emerging markets, from Latin America to Asia, still have their problems.

The Scotch Whisky Association is likely to get little change out of India from the glacial European Union-India Free Trade Agreement talks, where the industry hopes to get a cut in that country’s punitive 150 per cent import tariffs.

Elsewhere, it is possible that Chancellor George Osborne will dismiss the SWA’s call for a 2 per cent reduction in duty in his Budget next spring, believing that he has already played Father Christmas by abolishing the automatic alcohol duty escalator last time round.

Overall, Scotch may face a year of consolidation rather than advance.

Martin Flanagan

Markets

The FTSE 100 index has fallen about 2 per cent this year, following a 14 per cent rise in 2013.

Equities are likely to trade within similar narrow margins in 2015, as it did this year. Trading may well be volatile, but the stock market’s driving emotions of greed and fear will largely cancel themselves out over the 12 months.

A positive for equities is that any interest rate rises in the UK and stateside are likely to be gradual and may well not even start until the summer. Inflation is low.

A slumping oil price is bad for big Footsie constituents like BP, Shell etc, but is a fillip for wider industry’s input costs and consumer spending – both good news for equities. UK equity valuations are on the high-ish side, but not toppy.

More negatively, I see no early rebound for emerging markets, deflation will stalk Europe, and there are plenty of geo-political flashpoints from Russia and the Ukraine to the South China Sea.

Footsie end-2015 forecast: 6,800.

Martin Flanagan

Oil and gas