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We expect government bond yields in emerging market (EM) economies to fall over the remainder of the year, helped by a broadening easing cycle and falling Treasury yields. While the big question around monetary policy in developed market (DM) economies is …
8th February 2024
Policy support for Chinese equities may facilitate a near-term rebound, but investors probably need to be convinced that the government's attitude towards the private sector has shifted if there is to be a more sustainable rally. Chinese equities have …
7th February 2024
Although last week’s renewed underperformance of US regional banks and equity office REITs sparked fears of another mini banking crisis, a fairly steady decline in the option-adjusted spreads (OAS) of private label commercial mortgage backed securities …
6th February 2024
Oil prices have had only limited impact on US Treasury yields recently, and we suspect that this will remain the case in the next couple of years. So far this month, oil prices have fallen back quite sharply. At around $72 per barrel (pb) at the time of …
5th February 2024
The US Employment Report , released today, showed that non-farm payrolls for January came in at a whooping 353,000 – even more than the upwardly revised 333,000 number for December and almost double analysts’ median expectation. Immediately after the …
2nd February 2024
We expect big tech to drive the S&P 500 higher still in 2024, despite a mixed performance from the shares of most of the so-called ‘Magnificent 7’ over the last ten days in the wake of a flurry of earnings reports. To re-cap, six of the Magnificent 7 have …
Despite the Bank of England (BoE) following the Fed in pushing back against imminent rate cuts, Gilt and Treasury yields are on track to post big falls today. That partly reflects renewed concerns over US regional banks, and offers a reminder that for …
1st February 2024
Ahead of the first Fed meeting of 2024, we think there are two points for investors to note about how the central bank might affect markets this year. First, while the Fed may be cautious today, we see scope for Treasury yields to drop a bit more. Despite …
31st January 2024
We expect “safe” assets to rally a bit more over the next couple of years, largely informed by our belief that investors are still underestimating how quickly and/or how far many central banks will cut interest rates over 2024-2025. That backdrop of …
30th January 2024
The US Treasury’s latest borrowing estimates pushed long-dated yields down, and the Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA) on Wednesday may add to positive sentiment. But we think that a poor fiscal outlook in the US and more price-sensitive buyers will …
We think the best days for US investment-grade (IG) corporate bonds will soon be over. One reason is that credit spreads are now already very low. The option-adjusted spread (OAS) of ICE BofA’s index of US IG corporate bonds, for example, dipped below …
29th January 2024
Similar to the late 1990s, we think the economic backdrop in the US won’t stand in the way of a bubble inflating in the S&P 500. But unlike then, we doubt it will help the dollar much. US equities have rallied since GDP data revealed yesterday that growth …
26th January 2024
The stock prices of companies in the energy sector (mostly oil & gas firms) have largely underperformed the rest of the stock market recently, and we doubt they’ll do much better in the foreseeable future. The energy sector is the only one in the MSCI All …
We think the current backdrop is not as favourable for the greenback as the one that prevailed during the dot com era, so we doubt the bubble in US equities we expect would be accompanied by renewed strength in the dollar over the next couple of years. …
25th January 2024
While the dovish reaction to today’s ECB meeting came as a bit of a surprise, we continue to think that the direction of travel for Bund yields – and most sovereign bond yields – will be down this year. Today’s ECB meeting played out broadly as had been …
This is a special Global Economics Chart Pack that provides clients with key analysis to make sense of the macro and market impact of the disruptions to maritime shipping. The charts in this document come from our brand-new shipping dashboard , which …
While we expect equities around the world to rebound – as a stock market bubble inflates on the back of growing hype around AI – we suspect that Latin American stock markets will keep lagging. Global stock markets are not off to a great start this year. …
24th January 2024
Although the Bank of Japan (BoJ) stood its ground at its meeting today, we still expect it to hike its policy rate before long; that, we think, could contribute to a higher 10-year JGB yield. The BoJ didn’t make much of a splash in markets earlier today …
23rd January 2024
Judging by the latest rally in some ‘big-tech’ sectors, renewed hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to explain why the S&P 500 has just racked up a new record high despite a recent rebound (if not today) in the 10-year Treasury yield. (See …
22nd January 2024
US large caps have vastly outperformed UK ones over the past year or so, but that is skewed by the performance of the biggest names on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, there is little difference between the two markets on an equal-weighted basis over …
19th January 2024
While we think that enthusiasm around Artificial Intelligence (AI) will mean that equities in the US keep outperforming this year, we see scope for equities in the rest of the world to fare quite well. We made the case in our 2023 Spotlight series that AI …
Although Gilt yields remain elevated and sterling resilient, we expect both to fall over the course of 2024 as disinflationary pressures build in the UK. Data out of the UK released so far this week have indicated mixed progress on the goal of bringing …
18th January 2024
This Global Markets Focus explains why we expect the S&P 500 to soar in 2024, in contrast to those who anticipate a much tougher year for the index after a banner 2023. Section 1 sets the scene with a brief overview of the change in the index since the …
17th January 2024
We still forecast the renminbi to make ground against the US dollar by the end of this year, despite the seemingly stiff headwinds it faces. China’s equities and currency were back under pressure today, after the country’s Q4 activity data underwhelmed …
A hawkish mood has prevailed in markets this year, and comments from the Fed’s Waller today seemed to add fuel to that fire, at least initially. But given how aggressively rate cuts were priced in late last year, investors are still discounting a huge …
16th January 2024
Government bond yield curves in the US, Germany, and the UK seem to be once again on the path towards “normalisation”, or “disinversion”, as short-term yields are close to breaking below long-term ones. And while we think that 10-year yields will drop …
15th January 2024
In contrast to 2023, we expect a strong showing from UK equities this year, helped by a weaker pound and enthusiasm around AI technology. UK’s FTSE 100 started the day with a ~1% jump, after GDP data for November released this morning came in a bit above …
12th January 2024
We think that most major currencies in Latin American will fall against the US dollar this year. As a result, the relatively poor returns that we expect from equities in the region in local-currency terms are likely to be even worse in US dollar terms. …
This Update discusses how we think Taiwan’s election this weekend – which could be another flashpoint in Taiwan-China relations – might affect global equity markets, in aggregate and across some key sectors that look particularly exposed. Saturday’s …
We wouldn’t be surprised if US bonds and equities fell a bit further in the near term. But, in our view, the Fed remains on track to start easing in March, pointing to renewed gains in US asset prices. December core CPI data out of the US, released …
11th January 2024
We still think that China’s equities could fare well relative to others in the near term, but also that their longer-run prognosis is fairly bleak. The challenging times for China’s stock market have continued today, with the country’s major indices …
10th January 2024
A continued pull-back in the spreads of US private-label commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) since the start of 2024, at a time when those of US high-yield corporate bonds have edged up (see Chart 1) and “risky” assets in general have come under …
9th January 2024
Despite bouncing back a bit in recent days, the spreads of corporate bonds remain near their lowest levels in two years, making them vulnerable to a deterioration in economic conditions. Financial markets are starting the year on the back foot. After a …
8th January 2024
Today’s plunge in the employment component of the US ISM services survey more than took the shine off a slightly stronger than expected US Employment Report . In doing so, it appears to have called at least a temporary halt to the recent correction in the …
5th January 2024
We expect the Japanese yen to make larger gains this year than the Chinese renminbi. The yen and the renminbi, which had rallied over November and much of December, have begun the year on the back foot. Soft PMIs in China earlier this week (even though …
4th January 2024
With most major bond and equity markets on track for a second down day to start the new year, it’s fair to say that financial markets have started 2024 with something of a mild hangover. While reading too much into the first couple of days in the working …
3rd January 2024
Both bond and equity markets have started the year on the back foot. But, while a pause after the rapid rally in most asset prices over the last two months of 2023 would not be surprising, we think the outlook for both bond and, especially, equity prices …
2nd January 2024
We think “risky” assets could struggle relative to “safe” ones in the near term if, as we expect, growth disappoints, although we still think they’ll outperform over next year as a whole. At the time of writing, Thursday’s drop in equity prices had …
21st December 2023
While the valuation gap between “growth” and “value” factors in the US is high by past standards, we suspect that “growth” will generally keep outperforming in the next year or two. Since the start of this year – and as was the case between the Global …
20th December 2023
We expect the 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yield to rise next year, as the era of negative interest rates there comes to an end and constraints on the bond market ease. And w e think the yield gap vs the US will shift further in favour of the …
19th December 2023
Although the economic backdrop is likely to be less favourable for the stock market in the US over the next two years than it was in second half of the 1990s, we doubt this will prevent a similar bubble in equity prices from inflating as investors seek to …
Fed officials have pushed back a bit against market bets for rate cuts today, helping to send yields a bit higher. But the bigger picture is that there has been a massive reassessment of the timing and extent of rate cuts in key economies over the past …
18th December 2023
We think China’s equities could outperform those elsewhere in the near term, but suspect their longer-run outlook is fairly bleak. China’s equities got a bit of a boost earlier today from the country’s November activity data, which showed a healthy …
15th December 2023
While central banks remain reluctant to declare victory over inflation just yet, bond markets appear more than happy to do so on their behalf. With most of the policy rate cuts which we forecast over the next couple of years now already discounted, we now …
14th December 2023
Investors have revised down their expectations for the Fed funds rate a long way in recent weeks. But we think that shift will continue in the coming months, pushing Treasury yields down further. With a broad consensus that the FOMC will leave the Fed …
13th December 2023
While US inflation for November was almost exactly as the analysts’ consensus had predicted, the yields of long-dated government bonds still rose a bit on the news in most places. But we continue to think that yields will generally fall over the next year …
12th December 2023
“Safe” and “risky” assets are both on track for a strong final quarter of the year, and we think next year will deliver more of the same. After all, we think that the main tailwind this quarter – growing expectations that central banks will cut interest …
11th December 2023
While the gold price has retreated over the past week or so, we think it is set for a renewed rally next year as the Fed cuts interest rates and long-term real yields fall back further. After a strong run over recent months, the gold price has dropped …
The global bond rally faced a setback today after the US employment report was released. But we think that yields will resume their downward march before long in most places, including the US. One exception is Japan, where we expect they will rise over …
8th December 2023
We expect the US dollar’s resilience to fade over the next year or so, and forecast it to weaken against most major currencies. There’s been something of a return of the “heads I win, tails you lose” story for the US dollar lately. The “higher for longer” …
7th December 2023
