January was a mixed month. It started well on optimism over vaccine rollouts, fiscal easing, and the potential for further monetary easing. But markets then reversed as concerns emerged over delays to vaccine rollouts in mainland Europe as well as new strains of COVID-19 becoming more prevalent. January also saw a strange (and legally questionable) battle occur between hedge funds and retail investors (organised via a Reddit social media channel). This massively inflated the share prices of some fundamentally unsound companies (notably GameStop) as the retail investor army bought up stock in large numbers, pressuring hedge funds to take losses on their ‘short’ trades.

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