Financial Markets

As confidence in the sustainability of corporate sector profitability declines, the multiple accorded to equities should recede. Ten reasons to stay underweight the tech sector. Initiate an overweight position in gold shares.

The relief rally is not over, and could benefit from commodity and currency market movements. Oil prices likely are banging out a bottom. In general, however, a healthy dose of caution is warranted. Our bias is to sell into, rather than chase, rallies in risk assets.

Over the coming two weeks, the G3 central banks will be holding key policy meetings that could prove instrumental in setting major FX trends for the next several months. What can currency traders expect?

Near-term, global yields will remain depressed, but the structural forces suppressing yields should abate and even reverse in the long-run. Slower potential GDP growth - and lower commodity prices - will eventually shift from tailwind to headwind for bonds. Stepped-up efforts to increase inflation will boost long-term nominal yields; populist politics and calls to curb income inequality will amplify this trend. Long-term investors should stay neutral global bonds for now, but prepare to shift to a structural underweight beyond this decade.

A stunning 9.9 million-barrel build in U.S. oil inventories this week failed to arrest the upward climb in prices.

No significant change was made except that the weight of France was increased to 7% from 1.7%, largely driven by improvement in relative liquidity conditions. It's mainly financed by a reduction in the U.S. weight which remains the largest overweight in the model.

Are the arguments for overweighting European equities still valid? If so, overweighting relative to what?

Beyond the ongoing short-term rebound, EM currencies have more downside, and will depreciate by more than is implied by their forward rates on a 6-9 month horizon. This makes us reluctant to recommend buying local currency bonds to absolute-return investors. A new trade: Long Russian/short Malaysian equities. We also reiterate our short MYR/long RUB trade.

The recent rebound is not a harbinger of a prolonged recovery in risk assets. The many potential negatives will keep volatility high and trigger further occasional selloffs.

The Treasury market is now discounting too slow a pace of Fed tightening, while junk spreads are discounting too rapid an increase in the default rate. This week we examine the risk/reward proposition of temporarily leaning against some prevailing long-run macro trends.