United States
President Joe Biden’s average approval rating fell to 39.9% on December 3, while his disapproval rating rose to 55.4%. This polling is extremely dangerous for the president. He lags former President Donald Trump by 2% in average head-to-head polling for the…
Our Portfolio Allocation Summary for December 2023.
We enter 2024 as we were across the last four months of 2023, tactically equal weight across the board until the S&P 500 rally is complete and we gain a better entry point for underweighting equities and overweighting fixed income.
Treasury yields will sketch out a range between now and Q1 2024, with the upside determined by inflation and the downside determined by labor markets.
The US ISM PMI sent a slightly negative signal about US manufacturing conditions in November. The headline index came in unchanged at 46.7, which suggests that the pace of contraction was more pronounced than consensus estimates expecting the PMI to increase…
According to BCA Research’s Global Asset Allocation service, recession is still on track to begin in the first half of 2024. Is it the recession that never came? Certainly, the consensus thinks so. Soft landing is now the clear mainstream view. Investment…
Inflation won’t fall fast enough for the Fed to cut rates preemptively before recession arrives. The risk/rewards balance is unfavorable for risk assets. Stay overweight bonds versus equities.
As expected, US personal income growth moderated from an upwardly revised 0.4% to 0.2% in October. However, disposable personal income growth experienced a less pronounced slowdown from 0.4% to 0.3% -- particularly in real terms which expanded for the first…
Q3 US real GDP was revised higher in the second estimate that was released on Wednesday. The 5.2% q/q annualized increase beat expectations of a more muted upwards revision to 5.0% q/q from the advance estimate of 4.9% q/q. In particular, updates to…
The Fed’s latest Beige Book delivered a pessimistic message for the US economy. Half of the 12 districts reported slight declines in activity, two indicated that “conditions were flat to slightly down,” and the remaining four experienced modest growth. …