Business Cycles
The soft landing and rate cuts narrative is being priced out, and the S&P 500 is overvalued and getting overbought. The Magnificent Seven are about to get a new moniker on the back of performance dispersion. However, without the cohort, S&P 500 earnings would have been even deeper in the red.
The S&P500 During Fed Rate Cuts
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The US Employment report came in well above consensus expectations on Friday, delivering a strong positive signal on labor market conditions in January. The 353 thousand increase in nonfarm payroll employment beat expectations of a slowdown to 185 thousand.…
S&P/TSX Venture: Value Trap Or Diamond In The Rough?
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After falling throughout most of the second half of 2023, the US economic surprise index has surged over the past few weeks, indicating that economic conditions are firm at the start of the year. Indeed, Manufacturing PMIs delivered a positive signal last…
The Saudi economy is facing internal and external headwinds. The geopolitical conflict is also escalating in the Middle East. EM equity portfolios should stay neutral on Saudi stocks. EM sovereign credit portfolios should upgrade Saudi Arabia from neutral to overweight.
Given the huge disparities in wage inflation between the US, euro area and UK, it is remarkable that the markets are pricing near-identical rate cuts from the Fed, ECB, and BoE of around 150 bps through 2024. Assuming central banks don’t behave recklessly –…
As expected, the Bank of England voted to keep its bank rate unchanged at 5.25% on Thursday – maintaining policy on hold for the fourth consecutive meeting. Two of the nine MPC members voted in favor of a 25bps rise (one less than in December) while one…
The late-2023 broad-based rally across major global financial assets fizzled at the start of this year, with most of the assets we track selling off in January. Chinese stocks continued to perform exceptionally poorly, with the investable and domestic…
China’s official NBS PMI indicates that growth conditions remain sluggish. Although the composite index ticked up from 50.3 to 50.9, it is still barely in expansionary territory. Notably, the manufacturing PMI – which inched up by 0.2 points in January –…