The 'feel good' factor in global markets doesn't feel quite right

Tokyo

SOMEHOW it doesn't feel right. Multilateral financial institutions (MFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have been competing with one another to upgrade their assessments of short-term prospects for the global economy, whereas until quite recently they were full of gloom and doom.

The pickup in activity they all celebrate began, it seems, in the latter part of 2016 as the winds of world trade reportedly began to freshen and as the ship of the global economy, which had long languished in the doldrums, began to move creakingly forward again.