Developed Countries
Fed Governor Lael Brainard delivered an important speech last week in which she laid out the intellectual justification for the Fed to soon pause its rate hike cycle. This week’s report reviews her arguments and explains how they inform our monetary policy and investment views.
The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) fell by 1.0% m/m in December, following a 1.1% m/m drop in the prior month and below consensus expectations of a 0.7% decline. Non-financial variables led the December decline, particularly gauges of demand…
Preliminary estimates indicate that Eurozone consumer confidence improved in January. The European Commission measure ticked up to -20.9 from -22, corroborating several other indicators pointing to recovering sentiment among businesses and investors. …
US homebuilder stocks have been steadily outperforming in recent months, up 29% since the S&P 500’s October 12 bottom – 18 percentage points above the benchmark index. The nearly 100bp decline in the 30-year mortgage rate since early November,…
BCA Research’s US Investment Strategy service concludes that the biggest banks’ earnings commentary supports the team’s sanguine near-term view. Despite some fraying at the lowest end of the income and wealth distributions, consumers continue to hold deposit…
Our latest edition of the Big Bank Beige Book suggests that households, businesses and banks are in unusually good shape ahead of a recession.
European assets have enjoyed a stunning outperformance since October 2022. Can these strong returns last in 2023?
The volume of retail sales in the UK unexpectedly declined by 1.0% m/m (5.8% y/y) in December, disappointing expectations it would rebound following November’s 0.5% m/m contraction. Lower sales of cosmetics, sports equipment, toys, watches & jewelry, and…
Following the dismal performance of the S&P 500 Information Technology index last year, the sector has been participating in the recent equity rally. Does the 9.3% gain since the October 12 bottom mark the beginning of a sustainable rally in tech stocks? …
In <b><i>Part I</b></i> of a long-term series on currency valuations, we show that a simple PPP model has a good track record of predicting long-term currency returns (over 3-to-5 years).