United States
One commodity that has not reacted to the bullish demand-side news from the Politburo (see The Numbers) is crude oil. Brent shed over 2% on Thursday, in sharp contrast to Copper’s gains. Oil markets seem to be reacting to a bearish supply-side development…
According to BCA Research’s Commodity and Energy strategy service, even though US crude output will continue rising, a meaningful growth acceleration is unlikely. US producers adjust their output in response to market conditions. In the past, a selloff in…
China’s Politburo announcement is likely to lead to a repricing of China’s growth in the near-term. Read how investors can hedge against this potent threat to our defensive investment stance.
The conventional 30-year mortgage rate eased further to 6.2% from above 7% back in the spring, spurring a 20.3% surge in refinancing activity last week. Mortgage applications rose 11.0%, marking a fifth consecutive week of increase and the Conference Board…
A US recession remains our base case over a cyclical investment horizon. We expect the ongoing labor market deterioration to eventually tip the economy into a recession. We therefore continue to expect the disinflationary forces to dominate the US economy…
US investment grade and high yield spreads have tightened 22 and 75 bps since their August highs. Risk assets have cheered the outsized Fed rate cut as the narrative in markets aligns with the Fed’s conviction it can deliver a soft landing. Our US Bond…
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence index unexpectedly shed 6.9 points to 98.7 in September. Both the Present Situation and Expectations components declined, by 10.3 and 4.6 points respectively. The decline in morale in September was broad-based across…
We update our corporate default rate model and consider the implications for corporate bond spreads.
Preliminary estimates suggest that activity continued to slow across DM economies in September. Manufacturing PMIs contracted at a faster pace in the US, Eurozone, Germany, France and Australia, and grew at a slower pace in the UK. Services PMIs continued…