Insights

This year’s cash for clunkers program will have only a mildly positive impact on domestic demand for automobiles and home appliances in China. In the meantime, the equipment renewal program will prop up domestic manufacturing moderately as well as help the country reduce its reliance on high-end equ...

In the near term, favor oil and oil producers outside the Gulf Arab states. Over a 12-month horizon, favor US and North American equities, defensive sectors over cyclicals, and safe-assets. Within cyclicals, stick to energy and defense. ...

The Telecoms industry is highly concentrated, and carriers compete on price and quality of service in a slow growing market. Demand for capex is relentless. The roll out of 5G has disappointed. Recently, capex outlays have slowed, and operating cash flow has rebounded. Further, Telecoms is a quintes...

Stay overweight US equities versus world, long US energy sector versus Middle East stocks, and long Canada and Mexico versus global-ex-US stocks. ...

Stay overweight US equities versus world, long US energy sector versus Middle East stocks, and long Canada and Mexico versus global-ex-US stocks. ...

In the short run, global risk assets are vulnerable due to rising oil prices and bond yields. Cyclically, a global economic downturn will weigh on global risk assets. ...

EUR/USD collapsed in the wake of last week’s hotter-than-expected US CPI report. Is this pessimism warranted and will the euro’s trading range that has prevailed since 2023 breakdown? ...

We look beneath headline data to assess the state of the labor market in cyclical goods-producing industries that have previously led overall nonfarm payrolls and in the services segments that have recently been leading the charge. The bottom-up view looks a lot like the top-down view: the labor mar...

In this report, we present our quarterly review of our Model Bond Portfolio. The anti-growth bias of the portfolio allocations hurt the portfolio performance in Q1/2024 as global growth surprised to the upside. However, we anticipate some recovery of the underperformance in our base case scenario fo...

Contrary to conventional wisdom, most leading indicators suggest that the US labor market is weakening, including our very own “Mel rule.” After being overweight stocks last year, we moved to neutral at the start of 2024, and are now putting equities on downgrade watch with the expectation of shifti...