Following a rapid-fire review of issues related to household balance sheets, durable goods demand, the impact of tariffs, DOGE’s capacity to move the budget needle and the labor market’s ongoing cooling, we reiterate our defensive asset allocation recommendations.
After considering some of the most common bullish arguments, we stand by our recession view and reiterate our defensive asset allocation recommendations.
Risk assets rallied hard following the Great Geneva De-escalation, but we are not enamored of risk assets’ risk-reward profile. Forward-looking survey data remain awful on balance and we continue to recommend a defensive asset allocation profile.
Hard aggregate macro data series remain solid, but surveys of businesses and consumers continue to worsen and the list of consumer-facing companies lowering earnings estimates gets longer by the week. We believe surging equities are ignoring the adverse effects of tariffs and reiterate our defensive asset allocation recommendations.
The policy-induced decline in consumer confidence has spread to businesses and investors, increasing the probability of a recession even if the administration reverses field on its aggressive tariff measures. We reiterate our defensive asset allocation recommendations.
The stimulus measures driving the post-COVID expansion were beginning to wane after five years and pointing the economy in the direction of an organically occurring recession. Now that DOGE and the multi-front trade war have sped up the timetable, we reiterate our risk-off recommendations.
Households’ healthy balance sheets do not square with the rise in credit cards and auto loans delinquencies. The tailwinds that have supported higher-income cohorts’ spending have faded, presaging broad-based deterioration in credit performance.
Although there may be a method to DOGE’s 100-mile-an-hour madness, we think the worries and uncertainty stoked by it and on-again, off-again tariff measures have increased the probability of a recession while bringing forward its start date. We are therefore tactically downgrading equities to underweight and upgrading fixed income and cash to overweight. Investors should pursue a defensive posture.
This week’s report discusses the questions we were asked most frequently when we met with investors in the Midwest two weeks ago. We reiterate our pessimistic fundamental take and our neutral asset allocation recommendations.
The 3-3-3 plan pitched by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will need several improbabilities to break its way if it is to meet its goals. We think it is much more likely that the plan will disappoint. Defensive asset allocations will outperform once it becomes clear that 3-3-3 will fall short, but we are currently neutral across the board because the disappointment may be months away.