In a largely expected move, the Bank of Japan kept its policy rate unchanged at 0-0.1% in June. It maintained the pace of bond buying at JPY 6tr per month but signaled it would lay out a plan to reduce its balance sheet next…

  According to BCA Research’s Global Investment Strategy service, aggressive fiscal stimulus and labor market flexibility contributed to the relative strength of the US consumer. However, adverse region-specific effects also…

  The NFIB Small Business survey surprised to the upside in May, suggesting improved optimism among small business owners. Most notably, an increasing share of respondents is planning on hiring workers, and the jobs opening…

  Goods prices have been normalizing following the pandemic binge on goods spending. The May CPI release indicated that durable goods and nondurable goods prices both continued to contract. Investors and policymakers have thus…

  According to BCA Research’s Counterpoint service, job losers not on temporary layoff (‘bad’ unemployment) will need to rise further for the Fed to reach its 2 percent inflation target. Although prime-age…

  We continue to expect a recession by early 2025 but assign non-trivial odds to growth surprising to the upside until then. Our Global Investment Strategy team thus recommends investors adopt a barbell equity strategy as a…

  On Wednesday, the European Commission announced it would impose tariffs ranging between 17% and 38% on imports of Chinese EVs starting next month. These duties will be applied on top of existing 10% across-the-board tariffs on…

  In a widely expected move, the Fed kept its policy rate unchanged within a 5.25%-5.5% range following its June 11-12 meeting. However, the median dots have moved higher for both 2024 and 2025. The median FOMC member now…

  US CPI inflation continued to ease in May. Headline CPI stagnated on a month-on-month basis (3.3% y/y) in May, down from April’s 0.3% m/m (3.4% y/y), and below expectations of a more muted rate of growth. Core CPI also…