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Another step up in the Chinese and Japanese authorities’ efforts to prop up their faltering currencies has given the renminbi and the yen a bit of a boost today. Alone, these measures are unlikely to prove the start of a lasting turnaround: we continue to …
11th September 2023
Although upward pressure on the 10-year Treasury yield has abated a bit, the big picture is that it has risen by ~80bp on net in the past four months. While some of this rise has reflected a reassessment in the market of how quickly the Fed will cut rates …
8th September 2023
Emerging market (EM) easing cycles are underway in earnest even as the first Fed cut remains a while away. We think this easing will help to drive EM local-currency (LC) government bond yields lower, in general, over the rest of 2023. But we still expect …
7th September 2023
The worsening economic growth backdrop suggests to us that interest rate expectations for cyclically sensitive developed market (DM) economies are too high. We expect them to fall and drag bond yields sharply lower over the next couple of years. Earlier …
6th September 2023
We doubt the strong gains in Japan’s equity market this year mark the start of a significant reversal of its decades-long underperformance; we expect it to lag the US market over the next couple of years, both in local-currency (LC) and US$ terms. Today’s …
5th September 2023
New measures to support China’s struggling property sector seem to have sparked some renewed optimism in the country’s financial markets. We think there are three points to note. First, despite the rally, investors still seem quite downbeat on China. The …
4th September 2023
Despite today’s rebound, the general fall in Treasury yields over the past week against a backdrop of mixed economic data suggests investors could be starting to come round to our view that price pressures will continue to ease almost irrespective of how …
1st September 2023
We think China’s AI-related stocks may outperform their US counterparts over the rest of this year. But their longer-term prospects look less upbeat, to us. AI-related stocks in China were boosted overnight after a number of China-based firms launched …
31st August 2023
Although we’re growing less convinced by the idea that the US economy will tip into recession over the coming quarters, we still expect disappointing growth across advanced economies to weigh on risk appetite over the rest of this year. We think that may …
Stronger-than-expected inflation data from Germany and Spain today add to the uncertainty surrounding the near-term path of ECB policy. On balance, we think that the ECB will raise rates once more in this cycle and that government bond yields will fall by …
30th August 2023
We expect the gap between high yield (HY) credit spreads in the euro-zone and the US to narrow over the rest of this year as spreads in both economies climb. The option-adjusted spreads (OAS) of HY corporate bonds in the euro-zone have climbed to their …
29th August 2023
Market participants have taken Fed Chair Powell’s much-anticipated keynote speech at the Jackson Hole conference today as somewhat hawkish, even if the fallout, so far, is some way from the violent market moves which followed his remarks at last year’s …
25th August 2023
Stronger-than-expected Q2 earnings from Nvidia have extended this week’s relief rally in stock markets. While we think that US equities could falter over the rest of the year as growth disappoints, we suspect that AI enthusiasm will trigger an even …
24th August 2023
The weaker-than-expected PMI data from European economies is consistent with our view that the euro and sterling will fall further against the dollar over the next couple of months. Earlier today, PMI data for August out of the euro-zone and UK came in …
23rd August 2023
Although the 10-year JGB yield has gradually been creeping up towards the new 1% ceiling tolerated by the BoJ, this is no surprise given a broad-based rise in 10-year sovereign yields elsewhere. Indeed, if it weren’t for the BoJ’s ongoing Yield Curve …
22nd August 2023
We think global credit spreads will rise further by end-2023 in the face of disappointing growth. Having generally fallen since mid-March, credit spreads have been on the rise recently. Over the past week, for example, both the option-adjusted spread …
21st August 2023
Although the US stock market has started to come under pressure from rising Treasury yields, the valuation of equities relative to government bonds is still a long way from being as stretched as it was before the dot com bubble burst and on the eve of the …
18th August 2023
The continued rise in Treasury yields, following what may well have been the Fed’s final interest rate hike last month, contrasts with the experience of recent tightening cycles. But we still expect falling inflation between now and the end of the year to …
17th August 2023
Although disinflation in the UK is lagging that in the US, we expect yields in both places to fall this year. And we think that Gilt yields are set to fall by a bit more than Treasury yields through 2024 and 2025. UK CPI data for July, released this …
16th August 2023
The difficulties facing China’s economy and financial system continue to dominate much of the headlines. So far, the gloom has not made a major dent in the optimism reflected in global markets, although that could yet change. Another round of …
15th August 2023
We don’t think the ongoing troubles in China’s property sector mark the beginnings of a financial crisis, but do expect them to be a drag on returns from the country’s stock market over time. News that Country Garden – a large Chinese property developer – …
14th August 2023
With more poor economic data out of China and US yields again threatening to push towards new highs, it is little wonder that the yen and the renminbi have come under renewed pressure. While we still think both currencies will rebound later this year, our …
11th August 2023
We think disinflationary pressures will help the Fed pivot to rate cuts sooner than investors expect, giving a boost to “safe” assets this year and next. US CPI data for July, published today, was largely in line with consensus expectations. (See here .) …
10th August 2023
Despite oil prices hitting new year-to-date highs, other factors seem to be dominating the effect of rising oil prices on equity, bond, and FX markets. Even if, as we expect, oil prices edge lower over the next couple of years, we think the link between …
9th August 2023
The share prices of US banks have recovered some ground since a low point in May, as concerns about further failures in the industry have abated; Treasury yields have rebounded; and the economy has remained resilient. Even so, we’re sceptical banks will …
8th August 2023
We think the 10-year/2-year Treasury yield spread will become less inverted over the next year or so, but doubt this will come primarily via a continued rise in the 10-year yield like we saw last week. A striking part of last week’s Treasury sell-off was …
7th August 2023
The US Employment Report for July adds support to our view that long-dated Treasury yields will fall over the rest of this year . The weaker-than-expected July US Employment Report seems to have stemmed the bleeding in the bond market so far today, with …
4th August 2023
Though investors appear to be increasingly moving towards our view of Bank Rate peaking at 5.50%, we think the levels priced into the market beyond this year – and, accordingly, expectations for gilt yields and sterling – are still too high. Today’s …
3rd August 2023
The US government losing another one of its “AAA” ratings after Fitch Ratings’ downgrade decision last night is unlikely to matter much in the near term, but three points are worth highlighting. First, the market reaction so far is a far cry from that in …
2nd August 2023
Some measures of market risk premia have become quite low, suggesting to us that the bar for further big gains in risky assets has risen. If last week’s strong Q2 GDP print emphasised the surprising resilience of the US economy, the past couple of days …
1st August 2023
While we suspect that sticky core inflation in the euro-zone will mean “higher for longer” interest rates there, we think that the ECB will eventually deliver more rate cuts than currently priced into the markets. Along with our dovish view of Fed policy, …
31st July 2023
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) seems to have effectively ended yield curve control (YCC) without making a big splash in financial markets, but we wouldn’t rule out further effects – on Japan’s markets and those around the world – just yet. For a start, we …
28th July 2023
Our View : We still expect the US and other advanced economies to tip into recession later this year. We think that will cause risk appetite to sour, putting pressure on ‘risky’ assets and favouring ‘safe’ ones. We expect central banks, in general, to cut …
While both the Fed and ECB appear to be nearing the end of their tightening cycles, the strength of the US economy relative to the euro-zone suggests to us the euro is likely to fall further against the greenback over the coming months . Today’s …
27th July 2023
If the Fed’s tightening cycle ends today, as we expect, then the yield curve will be unusually inverted for this point in the monetary policy cycle. We think it will remain so until next year. Although money markets discount some chance of further …
26th July 2023
Chinese equities enjoyed one of their best days in years today, and we think they may continue to outperform equities elsewhere over the rest of this year. But the longer-term prospects for China’s stock market still look relatively unappealing to us. …
25th July 2023
Euro-zone government bond yields have fallen further following the release of disappointing PMIs today. Given our pessimistic view of the economy, we suspect that they will generally end the year a bit lower still. As euro-zone PMIs for July came in …
24th July 2023
We expect the fortunes of the Japanese yen and Mexican peso – which have both been outliers in different ways lately – to soon reverse, as souring risk appetite unwinds some “carry trade” and their relative valuations provide scope for adjustment. Amid …
21st July 2023
As the second quarter US reporting season gets into full swing, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture: the peak-to-trough drawdown in earnings per share (EPS) from last year has not only been smaller than typically seen in an economic downturn, but …
20th July 2023
More evidence that inflation is falling back in most economies has pushed government bond yields down across developed markets (DMs) over the past couple of weeks. We think that disappointing growth, as well as central banks eventually cutting rates by …
19th July 2023
All is well in the US economy – at least according to financial markets. But we think investors are underestimating the chance of an economic slowdown. The mixed news in the US retail sales and industrial production data, released today, didn’t seem to do …
18th July 2023
With yet more disappointing news about China’s economic rebound, it is worth taking stock of the headwinds facing the country’s equity market. For a start, the market reaction to the release of China’s Q2 GDP data has been fairly limited, both in Chinese …
17th July 2023
Equity, bond, and FX investors seem to have shrugged off the recent rise in oil prices. We wouldn’t be surprised if that continued even if prices rose further. Although they’ve taken a breather today, oil prices have been on a tear lately. WTI, which had …
14th July 2023
Renewed murmurs of additional tweaks to the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) Yield Curve Control (YCC) policy are giving further impetus to the yen’s recent rally. Though we forecast the yen to strengthen against the dollar this year, that forecast is driven mainly …
13th July 2023
Bigger falls in US core inflation than in the euro-zone or UK might mean government bond yields decline a bit more quickly in the US over the rest of this year, but ultimately we expect yields to fall in all three economies over time. June’s US CPI data …
12th July 2023
Enthusiasm around artificial intelligence (AI) seems to have waned a bit recently, and it may continue to do so if, as we expect, growth struggles later this year. But we think that it will resume sometime in 2024 and push the S&P 500 much higher. Over …
11th July 2023
There were two intriguing developments in bond markets last week, as the 10-year Treasury yield surged above 4% to its highest level since March. The first was a similar-sized increase in the 10-year Bund yield, to more than 2.6%. Th e second was an ~20bp …
10th July 2023
Signs the US labour market is beginning to loosen support our view that bond yields and equities could fall further, while the greenback could rally. Labour market data out of the US over the past two days has sent mixed messages : yesterday, the ADP …
7th July 2023
We still think a recession is on the way in the UK, and that it will bring gilt yields back down. Developed market sovereign bond yields have been on the rise again so far today , as investors have continued to price back in the “higher for longer” …
6th July 2023
The valuations of equities are, in general, still a long way from being unprecedently high compared to those of government bonds. There are umpteen ways to compare the valuations of equities and government bonds. One recent development in the UK to catch …
5th July 2023
