The recovery continues further as we progress through 2021. Commodities and cyclical equity sectors, like energy, materials and financials have performed very strongly. With more vaccinated people and easing social restrictions, the level of economic activity is growing apace. OpenTable (restaurant) bookings are now running only 20% below 2019 levels (globally), Google’s mobility data confirms visitors to retail and recreation venues is back to around 10-20% below 2019 levels.
However, our use of public transport is significantly lower, somewhere between 10 – 40% lower for most G10 countries. This is because many of us are working from home, with high variability across countries but with the UK and US still having around 30% fewer visitors to work-places relative to pre-pandemic.