Economic Growth
The market reaction to this afternoon’s Fed meeting looks overdone. Investors could be in for a hawkish surprise when it becomes apparent that the Fed won’t ease policy into higher tariff-driven inflation prints.
Notwithstanding periodic short-term rebounds, the path of least resistance for global share prices remains down. The resilience of European and Chinese stocks in the face of the US equity selloff is unsustainable. These economies will deteriorate as US demand – the sole pillar of global growth in the past two years – vanishes and tariffs bite. A new currency trade: go long MXN / short an equal-weighted basket of CAD and the euro.
Although there may be a method to DOGE’s 100-mile-an-hour madness, we think the worries and uncertainty stoked by it and on-again, off-again tariff measures have increased the probability of a recession while bringing forward its start date. We are therefore tactically downgrading equities to underweight and upgrading fixed income and cash to overweight. Investors should pursue a defensive posture.