Currencies

Can Powell achieve a soft landing? There are some indications he is doing it. We examine why our negative stance was wrong and analyze the four growth engines that kept recession at bay. Half of these forces remain while the other half have run out of juice. While this might be enough to keep the economy going, we maintain our defensive positioning. Equities have priced a very benign outcome. Meanwhile, rising rates in anticipation of a Trump win are pushing the economy away from the soft-landing path. We hedge the possibility of further upside in yields in case Trump gets elected by downgrading duration to neutral.

The latest Bank of Japan meeting did not alter our high-conviction views of being long the yen and underweight JGBs.

The global political system is destabilizing and the US will turn more hawkish in foreign policy, trade policy, or both, regardless of the election outcome. Tactically go long the dollar.

In this Insight, we evaluate if there is more juice in our macro bet of being long June 2025 CORRA versus SOFR futures, and correspondingly, being short the CAD, for investors with a 1-3 month horizon.