The US Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) fell by 0.4% m/m in January, following a 0.1% m/m drop in December – disappointing expectations of a milder decline. This marks the 23rd consecutive monthly…
Democrats remain favored for reelection in 2024, which implies gridlock and policy status quo in 2025. That is not negative for stocks in the near term. However, economic, political, and geopolitical risks will escalate from here,…
According to BCA Research’s European Investment Strategy service, European tech stocks could outperform their US counterparts in the last leg of the rally. The tech sector is in a bubble in advanced economies. While it…
Japanese equities have outperformed their global peers since September 2022 in common currency terms. Over this period, the Nikkei 225 and the TOPIX posted gains of close to 50%. A weak yen has boosted Japanese multinationals…
Much of the focus of investors concerned about lingering price pressures has been on services prices. There is good reason for that. Even though core CPI inflation remains relatively elevated at 3.9% y/y in January, core goods…
The S&P 500 forged a new all-time high last Thursday and ended the week with a 4.9% year-to-date gain, extending the rally that started in late-October. Interestingly, the recent increase comes even though investors have…
The stronger-than-anticipated acceleration in Sweden’s headline CPI inflation is unlikely to derail the Riksbank’s plan to pivot to policy easing this year. In particular, base effects from lower energy prices a year…
Signs that we are entering the last phase of a bubble are building up. Can European equities benefit from a new tech mania?
Households have ramped up their cash holdings since the end of 2019, but the absence of an empirical link between cash and consumption leads us to believe that we’ve modestly overestimated the risk of consumer-driven overheating.
Reported earnings for Q4-2023 were rather underwhelming and prone to issues that we have identified over the past few months: Growth is concentrated in just a few sectors and companies, while the profitability of a broad swath of the…