Demographics

Global investors should sell Chinese assets on strength this year and diversify into other emerging markets. American investors should limit China exposure. Short CNY-USD.

While the housing downturn will be fairly mild in the US, it will be more severe abroad. Continue to favor bonds of countries whose housing fundamentals will limit rate hikes.

The crucial question for 2023 is: will the US and UK Beveridge Curves shift back inwards to their pre-pandemic versions, ushering in a soft landing? Or, will we slide down the new post-pandemic Beveridge Curves into recession? Plus: we reveal the most important chart for Europe and the most important chart for China in early 2023.

The pandemic gave older Americans and Brits a massive carrot and stick to retire early. The carrot being a surge in wealth, the stick being a risk to health. In other major economies, the carrots and sticks were smaller or non-existent. Hence, the shortage of older workers, and the resulting wage inflation, is a specific US and UK problem. We go through the important economic and investment implications for 2023.

Today, we are sending you the BCA annual outlook for 2023. The report is an edited transcript of our recent conversation with Mr. X and his daughter, Ms. X, who are long-time BCA clients with whom we discuss the economic and financial market outlook for the next twelve months toward the end of each year.

Excess job vacancies in the US and UK reflect a labour market that cannot efficiently match unemployed workers with vacant jobs. This is because excess job vacancies reflect the shortage of labour supply in the 50 plus age cohort, whose skills are difficult to replace. In economic jargon, the post-pandemic ‘Beveridge curve’ has shifted outwards. Absent an unlikely shift in the Beveridge curve to its pre-pandemic version, killing US wage inflation will mean killing jobs. And killing jobs will mean killing profits. We go through the investment implications.

A client concerned about the slump in asset prices, the stubbornness of inflation, and rising bond yields asks what went wrong, and what happens next? This report is the full transcript of our conversation.

Older workers have deserted the labour force in the US and the UK, but not so in the Euro area and Japan. The result is that wage inflation is red hot in the US and the UK, but not so in the Euro area and Japan. Hence, the Bank of Japan is right to remain a lone dove, the ECB must pivot from its uber-hawkish stance quite soon, but the Fed and the BoE must not pivot from their uber-hawkish stance too soon. We go through the major investment implications.

Falling inflation will allow bond yields to decline in the major economies over the next few quarters. As such, we recommend that investors shift their duration stance from underweight to neutral over a 12 month-and-longer horizon and to overweight over a 6-month horizon. Structurally, however, a depletion of the global savings glut could put upward pressure on yields.

Investors should overweight US defense stocks in a world where US war-weariness is declining and the Biden administration is likely to exhibit an increasingly hawkish foreign policy.