Business Cycles

Our colleagues at Global Investment Strategy have shown that postwar US (and global) manufacturing cycles have tended to last 3 years, divided equally between an 18-month up leg and an 18-month down leg. This framework has been a useful gauge for the…

BCA’s Global Leading Economic Indicator has had a good track record of predicting year-on-year changes in the IMF global real GDP growth series. This GDP-weighted average of the standardized leading indicators of 23 DM and EM economies bottomed in early 2023,…

The Case For S&P 500 Healthcare …

The silver-to-gold ratio has surged close to 10% this year on the back of silver prices catching up to gold. Silver has returned 22% on a YTD basis, against 12% for gold, 13% for industrial metals and 5% for the broad commodity complex, making the white metal…

Corporate and junk bonds are the fixed-income sectors that are most exposed to an economic downturn. We’ve highlighted that markets continue to price in a Goldilocks scenario, with spreads narrowing despite ongoing deterioration in the labor market. Spreads…

The Caixin Chinese manufacturing PMI reached a two-year high in May, expanding at a larger-than-expected rate from 51.4 to 51.7. The Caixin figure thus contrasts with the alternative NBS manufacturing PMI, which unexpectedly contracted in May. The Caixin…

The Swiss KOF Barometer is a composite leading indicator of the Swiss economy. It surprised to the downside in May, coming in at 100.3 from 101.9, below expectation of an acceleration to 102.1. Switzerland’s economy is highly pro-cyclical and…

According to BCA Research’s Commodity & Energy Strategy service, the oil demand forecasts from the IEA, EIA, and OPEC are too optimistic. The IEA, EIA, and OPEC all anticipate oil demand growth to slow this year following a robust post-pandemic…