A tumultuous year in financial markets ended on a downbeat note, as lingering anxiety about inflation and central banks’ efforts to rein it in raised recession risks and unnerved skittish investors. Meanwhile, investors also contemplated Beijing’s move to dismantle strict pandemic controls and officials’ latest efforts to reflate the ailing Chinese economy. However, the pro-growth policy shift was largely overshadowed by fears that stronger growth in the world’s second largest economy will keep global inflation elevated. For 2022 as a whole, global stock markets endured their worst annual performance since the global financial crisis in 2008, while global bond markets capped their biggest annual slide in decades, underscoring the case for private markets strategies in a well-balanced portfolio.