Technical
US small-cap stocks have benefitted from the recent improvement in risk sentiment. The S&P 600 is up 10% over the past month – exceeding the S&P 500’s gains by 5.4 percentage points after having underperformed throughout most of the past year. …
We expect the US economy to slow and potentially downshift into a recession sometime in 2024, as tighter monetary policy weighs on consumers and businesses. In addition, (geo)political tensions may increase market volatility. The risk/return for US equities is unfavorable. We recommend that our clients reduce portfolio beta and increase allocations to defensives and quality growth.
S&P 500 Sectors Are Churning Beneath The Surface
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It’s no secret that a handful of mega caps have been driving markets in 2023, masking a somewhat lackluster year for equities. In fact, on an equal-weighted basis, markets gave up nearly all their YTD gains by the end of October. However, the latest rally has…
Our political forecasting scored wins in 2023 but we failed to capitalize on it adequately in our trade recommendations.
The spectacular rally in the cocoa price has taken it to its highest level in 44 years. The proximate cause is lower crop yields in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s two largest cocoa producers. Frequent extreme weather events caused by El Nino and a…
Analyzing the long/short performance of the Equity Analyzer Composite Factors gives insight into both what has been driving US large cap markets and how those drivers have evolved over the course of the year. The results presented in the table above were…
US small-cap stocks have underperformed significantly this year. While the S&P 500 price index is up 14.0% year-to-date, the S&P 600 has lost 2.5%. However, this underperformance has not been a straight line down. Small caps benefited from a…
The S&P 500's 5.9% rally last week marks the greatest weekly price gain since November 2022. This sharp increase comes after a 10.3% selloff between the start of August and late-October, which put the benchmark in correction territory. A 36bps drop in the…
South Korean exports are the latest in a series of Asian trade data suggesting that the global trade cycle is bottoming. The 5.1% y/y increase in October marks the first return to growth since September 2022. Among South Korea's major trade partners, sales to…