Financial Markets
This week’s report examines the state of the global monetary tightening cycle and addresses some frequently asked questions about the Fed’s QT program. New yield curve trades are recommended for the US and German yield curves.
This Fed is a single mandate Fed which won’t consider the job done until inflation reaches a 2% target. Concerns about slowing growth will displace concerns about inflation. Equities will bottom shortly before economic growth bottoms. Until then we recommend a defensive portfolio tilt, and offer a few tactical and strategic ideas for the overweights.
We remain constructive on the economy and equities in the near term because consumers show no sign of hunkering down, US homeowners are largely impervious to higher mortgage rates and our latest survey of storefront occupancies on Lower Fifth Avenue highlighted some encouraging developments.
Falling inflation will allow bond yields to decline in the major economies over the next few quarters. As such, we recommend that investors shift their duration stance from underweight to neutral over a 12 month-and-longer horizon and to overweight over a 6-month horizon. Structurally, however, a depletion of the global savings glut could put upward pressure on yields.
In Section I, we note that while recent inflation developments point to some supply-side and pandemic-related disinflation, they also point to potentially stickier inflation over the coming several months. The inflation, monetary policy, and geopolitical outlook remains sufficiently risky that an overweight stance towards equities within a global multi-asset portfolio is not justified, and we continue to recommend a neutral stance for now. This month’s Section II is a guest piece written by Martin Barnes. Martin, who retired from BCA Research as Chief Economist last year after a long and illustrious career, discusses the outlook for government debt and the possibility of an eventual crisis.
We recommend that investors use the following framework to think about whether potential disinflation would be bullish or bearish for share prices: disinflation will prove to be bullish for global share prices if it is due to an improvement in supply-side dynamics, but bearish if it is demand driven. We believe it is the latter.
It takes time for wage inflation to die. So, if 2022 was the year that central banks’ monster tightening killed bond and stock market valuations, then 2023 will be the year that it finally reaches the economy and kills profits, jobs, and the wage inflation that has so far refused to die. This means that commodity prices have substantial further downside, while healthcare relative performance has substantial further upside.
This week’s report takes a look at risk-adjusted return opportunities in US spread product.
The midterm election will bring some relief from US policy uncertainty. But this relief will be short-lived unless Republicans win the Senate, which is still too close to call. Global policy uncertainty and geopolitical risk will remain high.