Highlights So What? Markets remain complacent about U.S.-China trade. Why? The U.S. has escalated the trade war by threatening sanctions on key Chinese tech firms. Chinese President Xi Jinping is preparing his domestic audience for…
Highlights Duration: We see current bond market behavior as very similar to mid-2016, when heightened political uncertainty obscured the economy’s true strength and kept bond yields lower for longer than was justified by the…
Highlights We’ve searched in vain for imminent domestic weakness in the U.S. economy, … : Much of our work this spring has focused on trying to poke holes in our view that the equilibrium fed funds rate remains above the…
Highlights So What? Odds of a total breakdown in U.S.-China relations are highly underrated. Why? The key market-relevant geopolitical event is Trump’s large risk appetite. Inflationary pressures resulting from the trade…
President Trump’s announcement this week of a new deployment of aid to U.S. farmers, to offset China’s retaliation to steeper tariffs, highlights that agriculture has been the sacrificial lamb in the U.S.’s hawkish trade…
While we remain bullish on global equities and other risk assets over 12 months, we went tactically short the S&P 500 last Friday following the market’s complacent reaction to the Trump Administration’s further tariffs increases…
Highlights Looking past the day-to-day noise of trade-related announcements, we view the underlying odds of an actual trade agreement this year to have fallen below 50%. For the purposes of investment strategy, China-exposed investors…
Highlights U.S. Bond Strategy: U.S. Treasury yields are already priced for rate cuts and lower inflation, even as U.S. (and global) growth indicators are improving and U.S. realized inflation has ticked up. Maintain a below-benchmark…
In the U.S., the most important data sets may well prove to be the NAHB homebuilder confidence survey on Wednesday and the housing starts data on Thursday. Residential investment needs to strengthen further, otherwise the…