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Although US corporate credit spreads have taken their cue from US equities over the past couple of years, we think they will reach new lows even if equities reach new highs. The sell-off in US stocks that started on the 19 th Feb has been accompanied by a …
1st April 2025
While the recent outperformance of euro-zone stocks relative to US ones may have a bit further to run, we doubt European equities would hold up in absolute terms if US stocks fell much further. The renewed sell-off in the US stock market has added to its …
31st March 2025
The UK is likely to get to the other side of US tariffs unscathed compared to other economies . That’s because the UK’s services exports to the US (likely exempt from higher tariffs) are twice the size of its goods exports to the US and are likely to be …
28th March 2025
Equity investors have stopped ignoring US President Donald Trump’s tariffs announcements. We think they are right to do so. Donald Trump announced yesterday that all finished motor vehicle imports will be subject to a 25% tariff from next Thursday. This …
27th March 2025
We think China’s tech stocks could rally a bit further yet, and perhaps outperform those globally for a while. The breakneck rally in China’s tech stocks has come to a shuddering halt lately. Thanks to a couple of sharp falls they’ve now made no ground …
26th March 2025
While the drop and partial rebound in the US stock market over recent weeks has in many ways followed a familiar pattern, it has also seen some relatively unusual characteristics that point to the potential for a wider and sustained reset in financial …
25th March 2025
Over the past month or so, economic data have generally surprised to the downside in the US, whereas they have done the opposite in the euro-zone. This may be one reason for the intervening shift in the performance of their stock markets. Admittedly, much …
24th March 2025
The prospect of looser fiscal policy in Germany isn’t the only significant reason MSCI’s Europe Index has outperformed its USA Index since Donald Trump returned to the White House. The ‘big-tech’ sectors’ fall from grace in the US has also been very …
21st March 2025
We still expect Treasury yields to rise by the end of the year, despite the seemingly reassuring news for bonds from the Fed on Wednesday. There were, at face value, a few things for Treasury investors to take heart from in the latest Fed meeting. The …
20th March 2025
News that Turkey’s main opposition leader has been arrested today raises concerns over a potential return to unorthodox economic policy in Turkey. While the risks to our relatively upbeat view on Turkey’s financial markets have plainly increased, we think …
19th March 2025
A big spending plan nears in Germany, but that might not mean higher yields or a stronger euro. Germany’s Bundestag, the federal parliament, has agreed today to reform the “debt brake”, the strict constitutional fiscal rule that notably prevents the …
18th March 2025
The prospects for Chinese equities still appear quite bright to us, and in fact we expect that they will keep outperforming those in India over the rest of this year. Chinese equities were a bit of a mixed bag today. China’s offshore equity market …
17th March 2025
The yen shrugged off the results of Japan’s “Shunto” spring wage negotiations today, even though the unions’ demands for another year of strong wage growth were broadly agreed to by firms. That’s not too surprising: it’s been clear for some time that …
14th March 2025
While today's US PPI print supports our view that the Fed will stand pat this year, comments from central bankers in Canada and Japan suggest they may have different views about how over how to respond to the impact of US tariffs on domestic inflation and …
13th March 2025
It’s little surprise that inflation data for February hardly moved the dial for the US stock market – that probably requires clarity on trade policy and signs of economic resilience. Our base case is that both of these will come in the coming months (even …
12th March 2025
As was the case last summer, we think the US stock market will bounce back from its “growth scare”, even if tariffs are involved this time around. After falling by 2.7% yesterday, the S&P 500 is down again today at the time of writing, bringing to about …
11th March 2025
We suspect the jump in bond yields in China will prove short-lived. Deflation reared its head in China again today, with the headline CPI printing at a lower-than-expected --0.7% y/y in February, emphasising, among other things, the problems the country …
10th March 2025
While heightened uncertainty and worries about the US economy may keep investors on their toes for a while yet, we think the risk-on mood in markets will come back before the end of the year. The US Employment Report for February , released today, …
7th March 2025
The shift in the ECB’s tone today to acknowledge the increased uncertainty surrounding the outlook has pushed euro-zone bond yields up slightly, extending their surge over the past few days. Given recent developments, we have raised our forecasts for the …
6th March 2025
We don’t see anything in the outcomes of China’s NPC meetings to abandon our upbeat near-term view on the country’s stock market. China’s equities have been pushed in all sorts of directions lately, albeit more up than down. Late last year there was the …
5th March 2025
President Trump’s decision to follow through with tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, combined with further weak economic data in the US, has resulted in a further flight to safety across financial markets. That may well prove an overreaction – Trump …
4th March 2025
While the prospect of more defence spending in Europe is pushing up government bond yields there, we still expect Bund yields to fall back. Meanwhile, even if defence stocks in Europe kept outpacing those in the US, we doubt that would prevent the overall …
3rd March 2025
This week’s pull-back in the US stock market and the unravelling of US exceptionalism in equities since Donald Trump returned to the White House on 20 th January have been driven by growing concerns about two key risks that we highlighted here to our …
28th February 2025
Despite growing concerns that tech stocks are "priced for perfection", and the ongoing threat of tariffs, we still expect the S&P 500 to rally over the remainder of this year. The muted after-hours reaction in Nvidia’s share price to yet another stellar …
27th February 2025
The greenback has struggled over the past month or so, since President Trump took office. However, we think that a sustained fall in the dollar like that at the start of his first term remains unlikely. While the dollar has rebounded a bit today, it has …
26th February 2025
US Treasuries have continued to rally strongly today amid souring risk appetite. But we expect that the rally will reverse as Trump’s tariff policies prevent the Fed from cutting interest rates this year . Investor sentiment has taken a turn for the …
25th February 2025
Judging by the muted market reaction, investors don’t seem too bothered about the German f ederal election , which took place on Sunday. Notwithstanding the risk-off mood in global markets since the US open, which left Germany’s markets more or less …
24th February 2025
Today’s inflation and PMI data in Japan bolster our view that the 10-year JGB yield will continue to rise. We are sticking to our forecast that it will end 2025 at 1.75%, as the BoJ tightens policy by more than is discounted in the money market. In …
21st February 2025
We still think the PBOC will allow the renminbi to depreciate against the US dollar, perhaps quite significantly, by the end of the year. We suspect there are a few reasons that China’s central bank declined to cut its benchmark Loan Prime Rates today …
20th February 2025
Although long-term government bond yields in developed markets (DM) have moved in tandem with those of US Treasuries in recent months, we think they will diverge in the coming months. 10-year government bond yields have risen across the board this week – …
19th February 2025
Chinese stocks have generally outperformed those elsewhere in recent weeks amid signs that investors’ enthusiasm over AI is (belatedly) benefiting stocks there. While we agree that the outlook for equities in China has improved, we still think that they …
18th February 2025
Increased defence spending in Europe would in our view point not only to higher bond yields but also to wider spreads with German bonds. While industrial equities would presumably benefit, they might not keep outpacing their US peers. For decades, defence …
17th February 2025
US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will pursue imposing reciprocal tariffs triggered rallies in bond and equity markets, but we would be surprised if investors were really enthusiastic about the idea. Our assumption is that broad-based …
14th February 2025
President Trump’s push for a peace agreement in the Russia-Ukraine war would affect major financial markets mainly through lowering energy prices, especially in Europe. In turn, that would be a boost for equities and currencies in the region. But, unlike …
13th February 2025
Another January price surge has sparked a sell-off in US stocks and bonds, and supports our view that further Fed rate cuts are off the table this year. While we think US equities will resume their rally soon , we expect Treasury yields to rise a bit …
12th February 2025
Although the 10-year TIPS yield has fallen on net since the start of this year, we doubt it will drop to an even lower level by the end of 2025. That’s because we don’t expect the slight further policy easing discounted in money markets to materialise. …
11th February 2025
Gold has soared to another record high today amid a further ratcheting up in trade tensions. However, we think the rally may falter before too long . Gold has climbed by ~1.5% so far today, which has taken it over the $2,900/oz mark for the first time …
10th February 2025
January’s strong US employment report supports our view that the Fed will stay on the sidelines during the rest of 2025, as well as our forecast that the 10-year Treasury yield will end the year higher. The employment report pointed to the labour market …
7th February 2025
We expect the Bank of England to cut faster and further than investors expect, pushing Gilt yields down and in turn weighing on the pound. The Bank of England (BoE) cut its Bank Rate by 25bp to 4.5% today, as widely expected. Even so, the tone of the …
6th February 2025
Tariffs could continue to be a big challenge to China’s renminbi and stock market, but we think both could have a tough year regardless of how trade tensions play out. It was a slightly rough start to the Year of the Snake for China’s onshore financial …
5th February 2025
While we expect the US to start a trade war this year, we doubt that the initial reaction to the tariffs on Monday will necessarily set the tone for 2025. To re-cap, US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada over the …
4th February 2025
US President Trump has ended weeks of speculation and announced tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. We think there are a few points to note on their implications for global markets. First, despite the big moves so far, investors still seem to be holding …
3rd February 2025
We don’t think US equity market outperformance is over yet, despite the challenge from DeepSeek. The tone in US equity markets has turned more positive lately, with a modest gain on Thursday and futures pointing (at the time of writing) to another in …
31st January 2025
Even though we forecast the 10-year Treasury yield to end 2025 close to its current level, we anticipate that the 10-year Bund yield will fall over the rest of the year as the ECB, unlike the Fed, cuts policy rates further than currently discounted in the …
30th January 2025
While there has not been much market reaction to the speech that UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered today on how to “kickstart economic growth” , we are still quite optimistic about the long-term prospects for UK equities. Some of the key announcements …
29th January 2025
We think it’s too soon to say whether this is the start of a slump for those large US firms which have benefited most from AI hype until now – but if it was, what would it mean for the S&P 500? Our sense is that the index would slip this year, but that …
28th January 2025
News that Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s AI Assistant has usurped US OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store has dealt the US stock market a blow today, just a week after Stargate was launched to much fanfare. Exports from the …
27th January 2025
We think further tightening by the Bank of Japan will see the 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yield rise above that of the 10-year Chinese government bond (CGB), for the first time in more than two decades. The Bank of Japan’s rate hike today had …
24th January 2025
Although developed market (DM) equities outside the US have purportedly benefited from bargain hunting recently, we doubt they will outperform their counterparts in the US over the course of 2025 as a whole. MSCI’s World ex USA Index of DM equities has …
23rd January 2025
Donald Trump’s ringing endorsement of Stargate is another shot in the arm for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the early days of his second presidency, and supports our long-standing view that the S&P 500 will thrive in 2025 amid growing investment in, and …
22nd January 2025
