Looking into our crystal ball, what do we expect for this new year? Well, political and macroeconomic factors will likely be at the forefront, driving volatility in credit markets.

One of the biggest questions posed is how president Donald Trump’s return to the White House will impact Europe.

“With the change in the US regime there's a lot of uncertainty,” Katrina Buckley partner and co-head of global restructuring at A&O Shearman told 9fin. “Obviously, there's been talk about trade tariffs, but it's hard to predict the actual impact.”

On top of this, European countries are in the midst of “self-inflicted uncertainty”, as the president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde described the political climate, mainly in Germany and France.

The temperature of the sick man of Europe is going to be taken soon. Germans are heading to the ballot box on 23 February, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz called and predictably lost a confidence vote following the collapse of his coalition government. “We don't see any of the countries in Europe performing particularly strongly at this moment in time, but the economic indicators would suggest that Germany is at the bottom of the pile,” Chris Johnston, managing director in Alvarez & Marsal’s restructuring team told 9fin.