Developed Countries
Much like how core measures of inflation strip out volatile food and energy prices to give a better sense of the underlying trend, we can also look at Real Final Sales To Domestic Purchasers (FSDP) to get a better sense of the underlying trend in economic…
Evidence continues to mount that global growth is starting to rebound. European GDP was strong in Q1 and Korean exports, another global growth bellwether, beat expectations in April. However, just like how U.S. activity was resilient as non-U.S. growth slowed…
Consumer Spending Consumer spending added a meager +0.8% to GDP in Q1, but core retail sales growth has recovered sharply after having plunged near the end of last year. What’s more, with consumer sentiment close to one standard deviation above its historical…
Overweight Last week we highlighted a number of reasons why the S&P movies & entertainment index had turned a corner, underscoring our upgrade to overweight.1 Core to our thesis is that content is king and Disney is the reigning consolidator. Notably, the company’s Avengers property, acquired via the $4 billion acquisition of Marvel a decade ago, just set the record for box office openings this weekend with their latest offering earning $1.2 billion. This bested their own record set last year with an offering from the same media property. Stocks in the S&P movies & entertainment index have been soaring to reflect the eager movie-going sentiment of consumers. Such exuberant consumption of entertainment, combined with Disney-specific optimism from their upcoming streaming service and majority stake of Hulu, an already formidable streaming competitor, should be met with analyst optimism. However, we have seen just the opposite as pessimism has dominated the sell-side and forward EPS are set to materially trail the broad market (second panel), while revisions are headed lower (bottom panel). We think this bearishness should prove fleeting and would lean against it. Bottom Line: Analyst pessimism appears offside in an exceptional box office environment. Stay overweight. The ticker symbols for the stocks in this index are: BLBG: S5MOVI – DIS, NFLX, VIAb. 1 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report, “Mixed Signals” dated April 22, 2019, available at uses.bcaresearch.com.
Feature GAA DM Equity Country Allocation Model Update The GAA DM Equity Country Allocation model is updated as of April 30, 2019. The quant model has not made significant changes in the major country allocations, but has upgraded Australia to slight overweight from underweight and downgraded Sweden to slight underweight from overweight, as shown in Table 1. Table 1Model Allocation Vs. Benchmark Weights As shown in Table 2 and Charts 1, 2 and 3, the overall model outperformed the MSCI World benchmark by 43 bps in April, with 113 bps of outperformance from the Level 2 model, offset by 11 bps of underperformance from Level 1. Directionally, 8 out of the 12 choices generated positive alpha. The largest contributions to the outperformance in April came from the overweight in Germany and Netherlands, as well as the underweight in Japan and the U.K. Since going live, the overall model has outperformed by 152 bps, with 365 bps of outperformance by the Level 2 model, offset by a slight underperformance from Level 1. Table 2Performance (Total Returns In USD %) Chart 1GAA DM Model Vs. MSCI World Chart 2GAA U.S. Vs. Non U.S. Model (Level 1) Please see also the website http://gaa.bcaresearch.com/trades/allocation_performance. For more details on the models, please see Special Report, “Global Equity Allocation: Introducing The Developed Markets Country Allocation Model,” dated January 29, 2016, available at https://gaa.bcaresearch.com. Please note that the overall country and sector recommendations published in our Monthly Portfolio Update and Quarterly Portfolio Outlook use the results of these quantitative models as one input, but do not stick slavishly to them. We believe that models are a useful check, but structural changes and unquantifiable factors need to be considered too in making overall recommendations. Chart 3GAA Non U.S. Model (Level 2) GAA Equity Sector Selection Model The GAA Equity Sector Model (Chart 4) is updated as of April 30, 2019. Chart 4Overall Model Performance Table 3Model’s Performance (March 1, 2019 - Current)Table 4Current Model Allocations The model’s relative tilts within cyclicals and defensives have changed compared to last month. The model has turned more cautious on Materials and cut it from overweight to underweight due to a weakness in its momentum component. This in turn increases the overweight allocations to Industrials and Utilities, the model’s two overweights, and decreases the underweight allocation to the nine remaining sectors. While global growth is set to bottom, the hard data has not fully materialized yet, therefore preventing the model from being outright bullish on cyclicals. The valuation component remains muted across all sectors. The model is still overweight Utilities due to positive inputs from its growth and liquidity components. For more details on the model, please see the Special Report “Introducing the GAA Equity Sector Selection Model,” dated July 27, 2016, as well as the Sector Selection Model section in the Special Alert “GAA Quant Model Updates,” dated March 1, 2019 available at https://gaa.bcaresearch.com. Xiaoli Tang, Associate Vice President xiaoliT@bcaresearch.com Amr Hanafy, Research Associate amrh@bcaresearch.com
It’s official, the Italian technical recession is over. Italian GDP growth moved back into positive territory in the first quarter. Additionally, Spanish GDP growth rebounded to 0.7% on a quarterly basis, or 2.4% year-on-year. Thanks to those two surprises,…
The second factor weighing on European asset utilization and returns is the poorer level of labor productivity. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, European GDP per worker rose relative to the U.S., albeit peaking at 92% of the levels across the Atlantic. Due…
Like Japanese businesses 30 years ago, European firms have large debt loads. Another problem is the lack of capex opportunities in Europe. Why does our Bank Credit Analyst service make this assertion? The return on assets in Europe is not recovering. In the…
China is not the only factor flashing an unambiguously positive signal for the U.S. cyclicals/defensive ratio. BCA’s global leading economic indicator diffusion index is pushing 65%, underscoring that the majority of the countries we track showcase an…
How much of the looming Chinese recovery is currently priced in the V-shaped cyclical/defensives rebound? Our U.S. Equity Strategy team’s understanding is that while most of the good news is largely reflected in the slingshot recovery in the relative share…