Developed Countries
The US primary election is effectively over. The Biden-Trump rematch – our base case since 2022 – is all but set in stone. Only a health issue or freak incident could change that now.
Middle East conflict, extreme US policy uncertainty, Chinese economic slowdown, US-Russian proxy war, and Asian military conflicts do not create a stable investment backdrop for 2024. Our top five “black swan” risks may be highly improbable, but they stem from these underlying trends.
Flash PMIs sent a generally positive update on economic activity across major DM economies in January – particularly in the case of manufacturing. In the US, the composite index rose to a 7-month high of 52.3, beating expectations it would remain broadly…
The US dollar has started the year on a strong note with the DXY gaining 2.6% since it bottomed on December 27. Multiple forces are behind this appreciation. Investors have been scaling back their expectations of Fed rate hikes this year. A March rate cut is…
The Bank of Canada (BoC) kept rates steady at yesterday’s monetary policy meeting, leaving its policy rate at 5%. The central bank presented updated economic projections in a new Monetary Policy Report (MPR), which were little changed from the last MPR in…
Results of the ECB’s quarterly Bank Lending Survey suggest that the tight monetary policy stance is still weighing on the Eurozone economy. Banks tightened credit standards for businesses and consumers further in Q4 2023, contributing to the substantial…
As expected, the Bank of Japan maintained its ultra-easy monetary policy stance at its meeting on Tuesday, making no changes in interest rates or yield curve control. The monetary policy statement highlighted that elevated uncertainty around the economic…
The S&P 500 notched a fresh record high on Tuesday for the third session in a row, bringing its year-to-date gains to 2.0%. Yet as we highlighted in a recent Insight, the lack of a broad-based rally across all S&P 500 sectors raises some concerns…
Ahead of today’s Bank of Canada (BoC) meeting and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) meeting on February 6th, our Global Fixed Income Strategists compared the monetary policy outlooks for both central banks. In Canada, core inflation has already fallen…
According to BCA Research’s Global Investment Strategy service, labor demand can fall even in a full-employment economy. Investors often focus on the unemployment rate as a gauge of how strong the labor market is. The unemployment rate is a valuable…