The near-relentless narrowing in US credit spreads over the past year or so has left them at their lowest levels since late 2021. This echoes similarly upbeat pricing in the stock market. But, while we think that equities still have plenty of room to …
7th May 2024
Today’s favourable reaction in the US stock market to April's softer-than-expected Employment Report has coincided with renewed hopes of interest rate cuts, judging by the initial plunge in the 2-year Treasury yield towards 4.7%. (See Chart 1.) …
3rd May 2024
This week’s FOMC meeting supports our view that bond yields will fall back a bit further this year. Overall, financial markets took yesterday’s FOMC meeting and the following press conference as fairly dovish . Arguably, the key point in Chair Powell’s …
2nd May 2024
We doubt the recent rise in US bond yields will continue much further, or significantly undermine the prospects of US equities. The 10-year Treasury yield has fallen back a bit today ahead of the FOMC’s policy announcement, as the US Treasury’s Quarterly …
1st May 2024
While we expect Chinese bonds and equities to make more gains in the near term, w e think the outlook further ahead is not as bright for the latter. Chinese government bonds have been quite volatile in recent days. The 10-year yield recorded on Friday one …
30th April 2024
Japan’s apparent intervention in support of the beleaguered yen may buy some time for the currency to stabilise, but is unlikely to lead to sustained turnaround until US interest rate expectations start to fall back. While Ministry of Finance (MoF) …
29th April 2024
The NASDAQ 100 has shrugged off this week’s surge in real US Treasury yields amid a mixed bag of earnings reports from some of the ‘Magnificent 7’. (See Chart 1.) This suggests to us that the earlier pull-back in the index wasn’t a harbinger of a far …
26th April 2024
Hikes are back on the agenda at some central banks and core PCE data for Q1 added to the hawkish mood in US markets. But we don’t think the Fed will feel the need to start hiking again. Indeed, given the path of underlying inflation, we continue to think …
25th April 2024
Even if the US dollar stays strong against most currencies this year, we think that much of the broad-based weakness in EM (emerging market) FX has run its course. While some EM central banks may now slow their easing cycles, major shifts in policy are …
24th April 2024
We expect corporate bond yields in the UK and euro-zone to fall as rate cuts in those economies push down risk-free rates and strong risk sentiment narrows spreads further. In contrast to the weaker-than-expected PMI data out of the US today, PMIs for …
23rd April 2024
Stock markets are having a tough start to the quarter, but we think that they will rebound, notably in the US, thanks to renewed enthusiasm about artificial intelligence (AI). While they have bounced back a bit today, equities in the US and elsewhere have …
22nd April 2024
All nine constituents of the S&P 500 diversified banks index have now released their earnings reports for Q1. While the performance of their shares has typically been underwhelming of late, in some cases that can be only partly attributed to the lukewarm …
19th April 2024
Despite the ongoing surge in long-term government bond yields, the US yield curve remains inverted. As such, it is worth revisiting what the implications are for financial markets, and how this episode differs (or not) from previous curve inversions. As …
18th April 2024
Today’s UK CPI release has not made a sustained impact on investors’ expectations over the path of Bank Rate, and the market pricing implies that investors are still discounting fewer cuts from the Bank of England (BoE) than we are. This is why we expect …
17th April 2024
The correlation between changes in bond yields and in equities has rarely been so negative, and we suspect this will continue as yields fall back and equities rebound. When the Federal Reserve turned to monetary policy tightening in 2022, Treasury yields …
16th April 2024
Financial markets have, so far, taken the latest escalation in the Middle East over the weekend largely in stride. Our sense remains that, absent an even larger conflagration that disrupts energy supply chains, market participants will continue to focus …
15th April 2024
Inflationary pressures both domestically and in the US may keep government bond yields in emerging markets (EM) high for a while yet. But we think they will eventually fall later in the year. 10-year EM government bond yields have followed US Treasury …
12th April 2024
Today’s ECB policy announcement and press conference support our forecast for a June rate cut. Given that we expect more rate cuts than the money market discounts, we think that Bund yields will fall back towards 2.25% by the end of the year. Today’s …
11th April 2024
Today’s slump in S&P 500, following the release of a hotter-than-expected US CPI report for March, underscores the US stock market’s vulnerability to disappointing news on inflation. (See Chart 1.) Nonetheless, even though the pull-back was accompanied by …
10th April 2024
We think the price of gold will have eased back from current record highs by end-2024, but falling US Treasury yields and some softness in the US dollar will keep the price elevated. We had always expected the price of gold to fare well this year given …
9th April 2024
We expect Japanese equities to do quite well this year, as hype around artificial intelligence proves a more powerful catalyst than the headwind we anticipate from a stronger yen. Despite bouncing back a bit today, Japanese equities have fared poorly …
8th April 2024
Continued strength in the US labour market may keep US Treasury yields elevated and the greenback strong in the short term, but we think the upside for both is limited from here. And the backdrop for US equities looks favourable to us, even if the Fed …
5th April 2024
While a rising tide of optimism has lifted most boats in the US stock market so far this year , real estate is the notable exception . (See Chart 1.) That may change if, as we anticipate, the 10-year Treasury yield drops back a bit further from a roughly …
4th April 2024
We think China’s equities could fare better than those in India in the near term. For a while now India’s equity market has reportedly been a popular target for investors seeking emerging market exposure with less of the risks that come with investing in …
3rd April 2024
The sharp rise in Treasury yields this week has probably contributed to the sell-off in US equities, but it isn’t the only factor. And even if Treasury yields remain high, we doubt that would prevent the US stock market from rising further this year. The …
2nd April 2024
Equities have enjoyed another strong quarter and, while a lot of good news is priced in, we think they can extend their winning streak. Sovereign bonds have, by contrast, struggled over Q1; but we think they have scope to rally, and rate cuts by major …
28th March 2024
We think the bulk of the fall in corporate credit spreads is now in the rearview mirror, especially in the US. After falling markedly since November last year , the option-adjusted spreads (OAS) of the US ICE BofA Corporate Bond Indices have stabilised …
27th March 2024
While w e think that equities in the UK will continue to rise over the next couple of years, we suspect they will keep underperforming those in the US, and we see little scope for valuations to help them relative to other developed market equities. UK …
26th March 2024
Push-back from the authorities in China and Japan has stabilised their currencies against the US dollar today, and our base case remains that policymakers will prevent destabilising depreciations in the renminbi and yen. Nonetheless, it is worth thinking …
25th March 2024
While the current backdrop may keep the renminbi on the back foot against the dollar in the short term, we doubt that these headwinds will push the currency meaningfully lower this year. The renminbi has finally weakened against the dollar after more than …
22nd March 2024
This week’s flurry of central bank meeting points to growing confidence among policymakers in most major economies that inflation is on track back to target. That supports our view that long-term government bond yields will fall back a bit further this …
21st March 2024
Our view that Treasury yields will fall back a bit and that the US dollar will generally weaken by the end of the year rests on the assumption that the Fed will deliver more rate cuts than currently discounted in money markets. So these forecasts are …
20th March 2024
The Bank of Japan ended its eight-year run of negative interest rates today . We think there are several implications for Japanese – and global – financial markets. Today’s fall in the yields of long-dated JGBs suggests that investors took the hike in …
19th March 2024
Given our view that a stock market bubble will inflate in the US , we wouldn’t be surprised to see the equity risk premium (ERP) shrinking further in the near term. This might even go as far as the premium vanishing, as happened for instance at the peak …
18th March 2024
We think that, despite ongoing PBOC intervention to prop it up, the valuation of the renminbi looks very weak on a range of fundamental metrics. As such, we wouldn’t be surprised if it rose over time, especially if – as we expect – yield differentials …
15th March 2024
It is no surprise that the confidence of US consumers is closely aligned to the health of the stock market these days. After all, the share of households that own equities is the highest in at least three decades. With that in mind, the recent surge in …
14th March 2024
Most major equity markets and currencies in Latin America have lagged those in other regions since the start of the year, and we expect their underperformance to continue for some time. As equity markets in the US are making new all-time highs, there are …
13th March 2024
Stronger-than-expected US core CPI data did not trigger as big a reassessment in rate expectations as they did last month in financial markets, and we still forecast the Fed to start easing policy around June. Given our view that it will eventually …
12th March 2024
The surge of the Japanese yen ahead of next week’s BoJ policy announcement could still prove yet another false dawn. But with the monetary policy divergence that has driven the yen down over the past couple of years set to start reversing before long and …
11th March 2024
Today’s favourable reaction in financial markets to February’s US Employment Report probably reflects the inflation-friendly news of softer-than-expected growth in average hourly earnings amid mixed signals from the establishment and household surveys …
8th March 2024
We doubt that ECB policy will have much impact on German bond yields this year and next – if anything, risks are skewed to the upside. But the outlook may be a bit brighter for Italian bonds, and we expect the Italian-German spread to narrow. The yield of …
7th March 2024
Today’s UK budget announcement contained no major surprises, leaving our forecast for the 10-year Gilt yield to fall further this year and sterling to struggle against other major currencies intact. Our UK Economics service is the place to look for the …
6th March 2024
We think there are three key points for investors to note from today’s announcements at the National People’s Congress annual “Two Sessions”, where the country’s authorities, among other things, have announced fresh growth and fiscal targets. First, …
5th March 2024
We don’t think Fed rate cuts are a necessary condition for the stock market bubble to inflate further. After all, most measures of equity risk premia have scope to fall as hype around AI grows. A central theme of 2024 so far has been the paring back of …
4th March 2024
Today’s rise in the 2-year Japanese government bond yield to its new highest level since 2011 raises the question of whether this is the start of a far bigger sell-off in the bond market, or just another false dawn that will reinforce the reputation of …
1st March 2024
January US PCE inflation is in line with our view that the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation will return to target by mid-year, allowing policymakers to cut rates further than investors seem to expect. So we still think that the 10-year Treasury yield …
29th February 2024
The RBNZ’s decision to keep its policy rate on hold today illustrates how the bar for further rate hikes has become increasingly high for most central banks, even in the face of upside surprises to inflation. With money markets in New Zealand, and most …
28th February 2024
While enthusiasm over AI probably explains much of the “Magnificent Seven’s” outperformance in the US, the outperformance of the largest stocks in other markets is indicative of a broader shift in investors’ preferences towards larger stocks. That helps …
27th February 2024
Equities in Emerging Asia have outperformed those elsewhere in recent weeks, and we think that they’ll keep doing well during the rest of the year. Chart 1 shows that, while EM equities had a difficult start to the year (see blue bars, which show …
26th February 2024
While we think that American exceptionalism in stock markets will continue this year as a bubble fuelled by enthusiasm around AI keeps inflating, we expect equities in other developed markets (DM) to fare quite well. Nvidia and the other “Magnificent 7 ” …
23rd February 2024
