Neutral It has been particularly difficult to distinguish a clear signal from noise lately with regard to the cyclicals versus defensives ratio. Relevant macro drivers, operating metrics and profit fundamentals, valuations…

Highlights Analyses on Asian semis, Argentina and Russia are available on pages 7, 12 and 14, respectively. The most likely trajectory for Chinese growth will be as follows: the initial plunge in business activity will be…

Highlights In case you missed it in real-time, please listen to a playback of this this quarter’s webcast ‘What Are The Most Attractive Investments In Europe?’ available at eis.bcaresearch.com. Growth is set to…

  A dangerous break up in historical correlations marked this year’s trading, as both the VIX and the SPX became positively correlated. Worrisomely, since 2018 every time such a breakdown occurred, the broad market…

Highlights Duration: Bond yields will stay low until the daily number of new COVID-19 cases falls to zero, at which point a sell-off is likely. We therefore recommend maintaining below-benchmark portfolio duration on a 6-12 month…

Highlights Portfolio Strategy Most of the macro and operating indicators we track are sending conflicting messages on the anticipated direction in the cyclical/defensive ratio. Stay on the sidelines on cyclicals versus defensives.…

Cyclical & High-Conviction Overweights Both our cyclical and 2020 high-conviction large caps overweights versus small caps are in the black by 20% and 5%, respectively, since inception. Debt-saddled small caps have been left behind…

Highlights Bulk commodity markets – chiefly iron ore and steel – could see sharp rallies once Chinese authorities give the all-clear on COVID-19 (the WHO’s official name for the coronavirus). These markets rallied…

  Cyclical & Secular Underweight We remain underweight the S&P interactive media & services (IM&S) subgroup on both cyclical and secular (ten-year basis) time horizons as increasing regulation will likely deal…