Economy
An investor looking at the low unemployment rate and elevated job vacancy rate could reasonably conclude that the US expansion will continue. However history suggests that recessions often start seemingly out of the blue. Solid growth in the fourth quarter of…
According to BCA Research’s Emerging Markets Strategy service, extremely disappointing corporate profit growth has been the main reason for EM's poor equity performance in absolute terms and massive underperformance relative to the US/DM. EM earnings per…
In light of last week’s employment report and this morning’s CPI, it’s time for the Federal Reserve to cut rates.
The failure of EM stock prices to rally over the past 13 years is rooted in their companies’ inability to grow their profits. Even though EM equities appear cheap based on their cyclically adjusted P/E ratio, there has been a regime change in EM corporate profitability. Therefore, the CAPE model should not be used to value EM stocks now.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism (SBO) index climbed from 90.5 to 91.5 in June, the highest print this year, topping consensus expectations of a softening to 90.2. On the surface, this appears to be good news. Indeed, small businesses are particularly…
As highlighted in Wednesday’s edition of BCA Live & Unfiltered, the Chinese economy and its financial markets face several daunting challenges. Its demographic outlook is unfavorable, with a low birthrate stifling population growth; the grim math of…
US Core CPI inflation has decelerated considerably from its year-over-year peak of 6.6% in September 2022 to 3.4% in May and the consensus expects it remained at 3.4% in June. The year-over-year number has come down continuously, albeit fitfully, over the…
Copper has experienced a roller-coaster ride so far this year, with front-month futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange gaining nearly 40% from early February to late May, tumbling nearly 15% in just over five weeks, and bouncing around 7% over the last…
We consider the outlook for CPI inflation over the next 12 months. Our baseline forecast calls for core CPI to hit 2.40% during this timeframe and for headline CPI to fall between 1.74% and 2.49%.
Participants in the Philly Fed’s Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) assign a 26% probability to a contraction in US real GDP four quarters from now, down from their 44% peak probability in 2022. The unwieldy contraction-in-four-quarters wording makes…