Inflation/Deflation
We feel as good about spurning the soft-landing narrative today as we did about spurning the recession narrative a year ago, but we are not giving into complacency. This week’s report looks at two key ways that we may be getting it wrong: by underestimating households’ asset support and the labor market’s durability. We remain tactically neutral but continue to look for opportunities to turn defensive.
Amid patchy global growth, the US economy remains resilient. However, tight monetary policy will eventually trigger a recession in the US too. The stock market rally has been very narrow. Stay underweight risk assets.
Despite the economy being on the verge of a recession, the South African Reserve Bank will not ease policy meaningfully. Doing so will accentuate the currency depreciation, which, in turn, will push up bond yields – an outcome the central bank would like to prevent.
The first in a series of Strategy Insights where we present a checklist for extending duration in each major government bond market. This first entry focuses on the US.