Financial Markets
The ISM manufacturing PMI improved in August, from 46.8 to 47.2, but remained below expectations of 47.5 and extended a five-month contraction streak. Production declined at a faster pace (45.9 to 44.8) and both new orders and new export orders contracted…
The risk-on soft-landing narrative dominated investors’ psyche last month and pro-cyclical assets topped the August return ranking. Asian currencies led the pack by a wide margin, while the dollar was the largest laggard. Markets pricing in an upcoming Fed…
The 2Y/10Y segment of the yield curve is flirting with un-inversion. Aggressive rate cut expectations have largely driven its steepening, with the 2-year Treasury yields falling nearly 100 bps over the past couple of months. Our colleagues at the Bank…
Significantly stronger-than-expected consumer spending growth led to an upward revision to US GDP growth in Q2. That said, gross domestic income (GDI) has been lagging behind GDP. It increased 1.3% q/q in Q2, at the same rate as in Q1, and well below Q2’s…
According to BCA Research’s European Investment Strategy service, an increase in borrowing costs will further weaken vulnerable corporate balance sheets. As suggested by their Corporate Health Monitors (CHMs), the health of High-Yield corporate balance sheets…
Our annual end-of-summer chartbook report traces the labor market deterioration that led us to downgrade equities at the beginning of August. It also highlights the soft-landing expectations that the credit and equity markets are discounting. We like the risk-reward profile of our newly defensive stance.
MacroQuant continues to recommend underweighting equities and overweighting bonds. This is consistent with the Global Investment Strategy Team's decision to downgrade global equities to underweight in late June.
After surprising to the upside in July on higher energy costs, Eurozone CPI resumed its deceleration in August. Headline and core CPI declined from 2.6% y/y to 2.2% and from 2.9% to 2.8%, respectively. Energy prices contracted 0.3% y/y from July’s 1.2%…
Tokyo’s CPI is a timely leading indicator of nationwide price pressures. In August, the headline, core (ex-food) and the “core core” (ex-food and energy) measures all accelerated by larger-than-expected margins, reaching 2.6%, 2.4% and 1.6% y/y, respectively.…
Chinese onshore and offshore bank stocks have outperformed their respective broad markets by 26% and 24% since October. Despite deteriorating return on assets, return on equity and net interest margins, investors have sought out their high dividend yields and…