Regulation
China missed the chance to change course on economic policy and now it faces rising social instability and western protectionism. This policy approach implies it is not afraid of escalating strategic conflicts in East Asia. Investors should continue to underweight Greater Chinese assets. Any US-China détente will come later rather than sooner.
GeoMacro team partners with BCA’s Emerging Markets Strategy to examine political reforms in Argentina. Our colleague Juan Egaña argues that the time is not right to go long Argentinian assets and that Buenos Aires must avoid the mistakes of the Macri era: opening to foreign capital flows too soon without addressing structural macro imbalances. However, the Milei administration is on the right path with potentially global implications.
Investors should overweight US assets and de-risk their portfolios in anticipation of a major increase in policy uncertainty and geopolitical risk surrounding the US election and its global ramifications.
Don't buy the dip. The equity bull market is over. The US will enter a recession in late 2024 or in early 2025.
MORENA has once again swept the Mexican election: Claudia Sheinbaum will be president, with little to no constraint in Congress. All in all, Mexican politics will remain stable and overall supportive of markets. In the medium term, fiscal spending will return to conservatism and the constitutional reforms will lead to mixed fiscal and economic repercussions. In the long term, however, fiscal and institutional risks will rise. We advise investors to remain overweight Mexican risk assets relative to EM in cyclical and structural time horizons, but prepare for Mexican markets to sell off in absolute and relative terms in the next couple of months.
In the near term, favor oil and oil producers outside the Gulf Arab states. Over a 12-month horizon, favor US and North American equities, defensive sectors over cyclicals, and safe-assets. Within cyclicals, stick to energy and defense.
Investors around Europe and North America are concerned that the stock market is increasingly overbought and vulnerable to exogenous risks. We agree and have good reasons to fear that festering geopolitical risks and the US election season will deal negative surprises.
The US Presidential election is eight months away. In this report, we will be looking at what is left of President Biden’s political capital and his room for actions in the next few months which may include market-negative actions such as the recently announced investigation into Apple.
In this BCA Special Report, we ask what policies investors should expect if Donald Trump wins the 2024 Presidential election. The answer is that a second Trump term would be much less positive for risky assets than the first. While the US will remain democratic and geopolitically preeminent no matter the outcome of the 2024 election, a second term Trump administration would likely oversee large budget deficits, continued wealth inequality, labor shortages, high import prices, and an erosion of checks and balances, possibly including at the Federal Reserve. Trade policy under a second Trump presidency represents the greatest cyclical risk to investors, and the sequencing of policies in general will be important to monitor. An early legislative priority of immigration over tax cuts, alongside the rapid imposition of new tariffs, would be the worst alignment for risky assets.