Asset Allocation

Highlights Portfolio Strategy Relentless selling in utilities stocks is overdone and we are compelled to lift exposure to neutral. Operating metrics have turned the corner for the better, but a still challenging macro backdrop suggests that it is too soon to boost to an overweight stance. A rising interest rate backdrop, the sinking Cyclical Macro Indicator and near collapse in our sales growth model along with high chances of a profit margin squeeze, suggest that telecom services stocks are a sell. Recent Changes S&P Utilities - Upgrade to neutral for a gain of 15%. S&P Telecom Services - Downgrade to underweight, and add to high-conviction underweight list today. S&P Utilities - Removed from high-conviction underweight list last week for a gain of 18%.1 S&P Semiconductor Equipment - Removed from high-conviction underweight list last week for a gain of 20%.2 S&P Homebuilding - Removed from high-conviction underweight list last week for a gain of 10%.3 Feature Chart 1Time To Start 'Buying The Dip' Panic selling persisted last week, and equities struggled for direction, as the battle between liquidity withdrawal and stellar profit growth rages on. As we wrote in a recent report, the market will test the new Fed Chairman's resolve and this must have been an unnerving first week for Powell at the helm of the Fed.4 The 10% tactical pullback that we had been flagging in recent publications with the tech sector correctly sniffing it out has materialized, and our strategy is to start "buying the dip" as we do not foresee recession in the coming 9-12 months. While an undershoot cannot be ruled out given the emotional nature of recent market action, a number of indicators we track suggest that it would be a mistake to get extremely bearish at the current juncture. First and foremost, empirical evidence suggests that investors with a cyclical 9-12 month investment horizon should start to buy this correction (Chart 1). We analyzed SPX data back to the early-1960s and identified daily falls of 4% or more. There have been 16 such occurrences. In our sample we excluded the 1982 and 2015 incidents that rounded up to 4%, but were a hair below that level. For 1987 we included only one datapoint for the Black Monday crash and omitted occurrences very close to that date. Similarly, in the autumn of 2008 we only used the first large daily decline in our study and excluded other sizable downdrafts that were clustered around Lehman's collapse. We decided to exclude such clustered datapoints as they would skew our results to the upside. This analysis clearly demonstrates that it pays to "buy the dip" (top panel, Chart 1), and on average the SPX rises roughly 14% in the ensuing 12 months following the steep daily pullback (bottom panel, Chart 1). Interestingly, within a few weeks of the mini-crash empirical evidence suggests that markets typically retest those beaten-down levels and tend to hold above them. The implication is that investors have some time to deploy cash and/or reposition portfolios in order to take advantage of the recent pullback. Second, credit spreads have been surprisingly quiet. Bond spreads across the risk spectrum are extremely sensitive to risk off phases and one would have expected a sharp widening in spreads during the recent turmoil (fourth panel, Chart 2A). Chart 2ANo Systemic Risk Evident Chart 2BLatent Buying Power Third, the U.S. dollar has remained muted despite recent stock market jitters. A soft greenback is purely redistributive and represents a boost to global growth (third panel, Chart 2A). Fourth, short equity market positions are pinned near all-time highs representing latent dry powder (Chart 2B). Fifth, the VIX has gone vertical surging beyond the 50 level. Both the jump in the VIX and the explosion in trading volumes signal that capitulation was likely hit (second panel, Chart 2A). Finally, the recent market swoon along with rising EPS estimates have knocked down valuations pushing them to a 16 handle on a 12-month forward P/E basis (bottom panel, Chart 2A). In other words, all these indicators suggest that the bulk of the selling may have already occurred, and an absorption/consolidation phase will likely take place in the next few weeks. In fact, the recent let-up of soft data and simultaneous perkiness of hard data also corroborates that a lateral move is in the cards for the broad market (Chart 3). Chart 3Consolidation Phase Ahead We are willing to ride out the volatility and selectively look for opportunities to put cash to work, given our view that the longevity of the business cycle remains intact. Our core strategy remains to stay heavily focused on financials and industrials that benefit from our two key 2018 themes: higher interest rates and synchronized global capex upcycle. The energy sector also provides excellent value and a positive cyclical earnings outlook, based on BCA's upbeat crude oil view and rising odds of a virtuous capex upcycle. Meanwhile, health care remains our core defensive sector underweight. This sector still has to contend with political backlash against its multi-decade resilient selling price backdrop. With regard to the niche fixed income proxies, we are making a small tweak this week lifting the bombed-out utilities sector to neutral from underweight and locking in gains of 15% since inception. We are also downgrading defensive telecom stocks from neutral to underweight. Enough Is Enough In Bombed-Out Utilities In mid-summer we downgraded utilities to a below benchmark allocation, and subsequently on November 27th we were compelled to add it to our 2018 high-conviction underweight list, doubling down on our bearishness toward this fixed income proxy sector. These moves have paid handsome dividends and added alpha to our portfolio. Last week we crystalized gains by obeying our trailing stop that got triggered on our high-conviction list, registering 18% gains for the utilities underweight call. And, today we recommend an upgrade to a neutral stance to the niche S&P utilities sector, booking 15% gains since the July 24th inception, as indiscriminate selling has gone way too far in our opinion. Chart 4 shows that relative utilities performance has hit rock-bottom, plumbing all-time lows. In fact, the relative share price ratio has been so downbeat that if history at least rhymes a temporary relief rebound is in sight. Such oversold levels in our composite technical indicator have marked previous troughs (bottom panel, Chart 5). Tack on a gap down in relative valuations right at the neutral zone, and the implication is that it does not pay to be bearish from current washed out relative share price levels. Chart 4Unloved... Chart 5...And Under-owned Utilities... On the operational front, nat gas prices are no longer reeling and should boost industry pricing power as they are the marginal price setter for utilities (top two panels, Chart 6). Electricity production is also staging a slingshot recovery. This demand increase should also underpin utilities selling prices. Resource utilization is on the rise, up roughly 700bps from the 2016 trough. Once again the removal of excess slack should at least put a floor under industry producer price inflation. Indeed, our utilities sector productivity proxy has caught on fire recently pushing four year highs as both industry output and employment restraint are aiding our gauge. The upshot is that sell side analyst pessimism has likely hit a trough (bottom panel, Chart 6). All of these positives signal that we should take a punt and boost exposure all the way to overweight, nevertheless a challenging macro backdrop keeps us on the sidelines for now. Chart 7 shows that utilities stocks are the mirror image of the global manufacturing PMI survey. In other words, relative share prices move inversely with the ebb and flow of global growth, showcasing their ultimate safe-haven status. Similarly, increasing capital outlays are negatively correlated with utilities stocks, and given our synchronized global growth and global capex themes, utilities have limited cyclical upside. Finally, this high dividend yielding sector also suffers when Treasury bond yields shoot higher, as competing risk free assets become more appealing. Higher interest rates is one of BCA's key 2018 themes, and any resumption of the 10-year Treasury selloff will continue to weigh on relative performance (bottom panel, Chart 7). Chart 6...Are Coming Back To Life... Chart 7...But Do Not Get Carried Away Netting it all out, relentless selling in utilities stocks is overdone and we are compelled to lift exposure to neutral. Operating metrics have turned the corner for the better, but a still challenging macro backdrop suggests that it is too soon to boost to an overweight stance. Bottom Line: Take profits of 15% and lift the S&P utilities sector to a benchmark allocation. Trim Telecom Services To Underweight We are filling the void from the upgrade in the S&P utilities sector by downgrading the S&P telecom services sector to underweight, and also adding it to the high-conviction underweight list. This defensive sector swap preserves our bearishness toward safe haven assets as both sectors have a similar weight in the SPX. Three main reasons are behind our dislike for this fixed income proxy sector: BCA's 2018 rising interest rate theme Both our Cyclical Macro Indicator (CMI) and our sales model send a distress signal A profit margin squeeze is looming The top panel of Chart 8 shows that high dividend yielding telecom services stocks and the 10-year yield are nearly perfectly inversely correlated. In fact, telecom services stocks are prime beneficiaries of disinflation/deflation and vice versa (bottom panel, Chart 8). BCA's bond market view remains that the 10-year yield will continue to rise on the back of rising inflation expectations, and this represents a bearish backdrop for the telecom services sector. Our CMI has melted and relative consumer outlays on telecom services have also taken a nosedive (top two panels, Chart 9), warning that revenue growth will be hard to come by for telecom carriers. In fact, while nearly all of the GICS1 sectors have come out of the top line growth lull of late-2015/early-2016, telecom services sales growth has relapsed. Worrisomely, our S&P telecom services revenue growth model remains deep in contractionary territory, waving a red flag (bottom panel, Chart 9). Still steeply deflating selling prices are a major headwind for the sector's top and bottom line growth prospects and coupled with a still expanding wage bill, suggest that a profit margin squeeze is looming (fourth panel Chart 10). Chart 8No Dial Tone Chart 9Models Say Shy Away Chart 10Looming Margin Squeeze The sell side analyst community does not share this dire earnings picture. Net earnings revisions have gone vertical likely on the back of the recent tax reform. However, increasing industry slack underscores that beyond any one time gains from a lower corporate tax rate, organic EPS growth will be anemic at best. In fact, telecom services weekly hours worked do an excellent job of forecasting the sector's net earnings revision ratio and the current message is grim for profits (bottom panel, Chart 10). Adding it up, a rising interest rate backdrop, the sinking CMI and near collapse in our sales growth model along with high chances of a profit margin squeeze, suggest that a fresh bear phase is likely in the S&P telecom services sector. Bottom Line: Downgrade the S&P telecom services sector to a below benchmark allocation. We are also adding it to our high-conviction underweight list. The ticker symbols for the stocks in this index are: T, VZ, CTL. Anastasios Avgeriou, Vice President U.S. Equity Strategy anastasios@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Insight, "Stocks Take An Escalator Up, And An Elevator Down," dated February 7, 2018, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Insight, "Housekeeping In Turbulent Times," dated February 9, 2018, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. 3 Ibid. 4 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report, "Will The Market Test Powell?" dated November 13, 2017, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. Current Recommendations Current Trades Size And Style Views Favor value over growth. Stay neutral small over large caps (downgrade alert).

Highlights The spike in volatility last week led to a sharp correction in equities. However, the bull market in equities is not over yet. The Fed's response to the selloff will be critical. Policymakers will closely monitor financial conditions. The most overvalued assets are at greatest risk during a selloff. Feature Financial markets did not give new Fed Chair Jay Powell a warm welcome last week. Volatility spiked, and risk assets fell sharply. Nonetheless, BCA's view is that strong economic growth and stout earnings growth will keep the bull market intact. The selloff is reminiscent of the 7% drop in the S&P 500 in May of 2006.1 Back in the spring of 2006, then Chairman Ben Bernanke had just taken the helm at the Federal Reserve. Global growth was strong, the U.S. dollar was selling off and global share prices were surging and overbought. From May through June 2006, markets sold off because of the then-prevailing narrative that Chairman Bernanke would be too dovish, allowing U.S. inflation to get out of hand. U.S. bond yields spiked, inflicting particular damage on EM assets. The February 2018 may not play out exactly like May 2006. That said, there are enough similarities to draw parallels. Global growth is robust and inflationary pressures are accumulating. Bond yields are rising, and the greenback is selling off. A new Fed Chairman just took over the reins, and there are growing odds that U.S. inflation will soon begin to rise, justifying more Fed rate hikes. The Fed's response to the tighter financial conditions will be crucial. The May 2006 selloff turned out to be just a correction in a bull market that lasted another 18 months. Still, investors today are also concerned about what to sell first as the end of the expansion draws closer. A Shake Up BCA strategists believe that the market turmoil since last week reflects a technical correction from overbought and over complacent levels, but the cyclical bull run is not yet over.2 Nonetheless, investors should note that the bull market is entering its late stages. The low inflation and low volatility era is ending as the U.S. economy begins to face late-cycle, supply-side constraints, especially in the labor market. Therefore, the equity advance will be associated with higher volatility than in the past few years. Chart 1 shows that the VIX soared by roughly four times more on February 5 than expected, based on the decline in equity prices. This suggests that the spike in volatility caused the stock market plunge, rather than the other way around. The relatively muted reaction in the past few days of other risk gauges, such as junk bonds, EM stocks, and gold prices, is consistent with this thesis. Chart 1Last Monday's VIX Spike Was Abnormally Large Importantly, the implosion of volatility funds is unlikely to reverberate across the global financial system in the same way as it did during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. The mortgage crisis a decade ago was so toxic that the losses were concentrated in the books of highly leveraged financial institutions. However, that does not appear to be the current case with volatility funds. The cyclical underpinnings for the bull market in equities is intact. The odds of a recession remain low (Chart 2). Corporate earnings continue to come in above expectations, aided by a wave of share buybacks linked to the U.S. Tax Cut and Jobs Act (Chart 3). Global economic growth remains upbeat as well. Chart 2Odds Of A Recession##BR##Remain Low Chart 3Buybacks, Surging Capex##BR##Raising The Bar For 2018 EPS Growth Chart 4U.S. Equities And Vol##BR##Climbed Through The 1990s This does not mean that everything will be smooth sailing. Last week's selloff marked an inflection point in the low-volatility world that has prevailed in the past few years. The VIX Humpty-Dumpty has been irrevocably broken. Volatility will stay elevated relative to what investors have come to anticipate. As the experience of the 1990s shows, stocks can still climb when volatility trends higher (Chart 4), but this is going to make for a more challenging investment environment. Bottom Line: Rising volatility does not mean the end of the bull market or the economic expansion. Bear markets outside of recessions are rare, and our view remains that the odds of a recession this year or next remain low. Moreover, the additional dose of fiscal stimulus passed by Congress late last week may extend the expansion into 2020. Stay overweight stocks versus bonds.3 The Policy Response The Fed's reaction to this new regime will be critical. The 7.2% drop in equities last week occurred on Jay Powell's first as Chairman of the Fed. Chart 5 shows that it is not unusual for the equity markets to be in turmoil in the early months of a new Fed Chair's tenure. BCA expects that Powell and his FOMC colleagues will adopt Janet Yellen's gradual approach to raising rates this year. Nonetheless, the January readings on average hourly earnings suggest that supply-side constraints are beginning to bite. The runway for low inflation and easy monetary policy may not be as long as some had hoped. Just like Yellen, Jay Powell will seek a consensus among his colleagues. The composition of the FOMC will probably shift in a more hawkish direction, but the evolution will be slow. In the meantime, the recommendations of career Fed staff will represent an important and often underappreciated source of continuity. Last week, several Fed speakers reinforced that the central bank will continue to monitor incoming economic and financial data, and react accordingly. The stock market rout has led to some tightening in financial conditions, but FCIs in the U.S. remain more expansionary than they were six months ago (Chart 6). As a result, U.S. economic growth is poised to accelerate even more in the first half of the year (Chart 7). This will push the unemployment rate further below NAIRU and ultimately force up wage and price inflation. Chart 5New Fed Chairs##BR##And The Equity Market Chart 6Decline In Equity Market##BR##Tightened Financial Conditions However, at 2.1% on February 8, the 10-year TIPS breakeven yield was still below the 2.4 to 2.5% range where markets need to worry about the Fed falling behind the curve (Chart 8). A shift above 2.4% would be consistent with the Fed's 2% target for the PCE measure of inflation. This would signal that the FOMC will have to boost the pace of rate hikes and aggressively slow economic growth. We expect the Fed to tighten four times in 2018. We will likely take some money off the table if core inflation rises, even if it is still below 2%, when the TIPS breakeven reaches 2.4%. Chart 7Lagged Effect Of Easier##BR##Monetary Conditions Will Boost Growth Chart 8Breaking Down##BR##The Rise In Yields A sustained move above 3% on the nominal 10-year Treasury yield will require a more durable increase in inflation. Ultimately, we think core inflation will move4 above 2%, forcing the Fed to lift interest rates into restrictive territory. However, this probably will be a story for 2019 rather than 2018. Stocks tend to peak about six months before the start of a recession (Table 1). If the next recession occurs in late 2019, as we forecast, the equity bull market could last a while longer. The additional fiscal impulse from the spending bill passed by Congress last week may extend the expansion into early 2020. A modest overweight on global risk assets is warranted for now, but investors should consider reducing their risk exposure later this year. Table 1Too Soon To Get Out Bottom Line: The Fed and the market are now in agreement on rate hikes in 2018. BCA's U.S. Bond Strategists' stance is that the 2/10 curve will flatten from here, as the upside in long maturity yields will be limited once the TIPS breakeven inflation rates reach our target fair value range of 2.4-2.5%. Nonetheless, at that point, the nominal 10-year yield5 is likely to be between 3.0 and 3.25%. Stay underweight duration for now. Where Do We Go From Here? Clients have asked our view on the appropriate order in which to reduce risk assets. One way to approach the question is to compare valuation across asset classes. Presumably, the most over-valued ones are at greatest risk, and thus profits should be taken here first. It is difficult to compare valuation across asset classes. Should one use fitted values from models or simple deviations from moving averages? Over what time span? We include multiple measures because there is no widely accepted approach. More than one time period was used in some cases to capture regime changes. Table 2 provides our best approximation for nine asset classes. The approaches range from sophisticated methods6 developed over many years (i.e. our equity valuation indicators), to regression analysis on the fundamentals (i.e. oil), to simple deviations from a time trend (i.e. real raw industrial commodity prices and gold). Table 2Valuation Levels For Major Asset Classes We averaged the valuation readings where there were multiple estimates for a single asset class. The results are shown in Chart 9. Chart 9Valuation Levels For Major Asset Classes By far, U.S. equities stand out as the most expensive at 1.8 standard deviations above fair value. Gold, raw industrials and EM equities are next at one standard deviation overvalued. EM sovereign bond spreads follow at 0.7, tracked closely by U.S. Treasuries (real yield levels) and investment-grade corporate (IG) bonds (expressed as a spread). High-yield (HY) is only about 0.3 sigma expensive, based on default-adjusted spreads over the Treasury curve. That said, both IG and HY are very expensive in absolute terms based on the fact that government bonds are pricey. Oil is sitting very close to fair value, despite the rapid price run up in the past couple of months. This makes oil exposure doubly attractive because the fundamentals point to higher prices when the underlying asset is not expensive. Historical analysis around equity market zeniths provides an alternative approach to the sequencing question. Table 3 presents the number of days that various asset classes peaked before or after the past major five tops in the S&P 500. A negative number indicates that the asset class peaked before U.S. equities, and a positive number means that it peaked after. Table 3Asset Class Leads & Lags Vs. Peak In S&P 500 Unfortunately, there is no consistent pattern observed for EM equities, raw industrials, U.S. cyclical stocks, tech stocks or small-cap versus large-cap relative returns. Sometimes they reached their zenith before the S&P 500, and sometimes after. The EM sovereign bond excess return index peaked about 130 days in advance of the 1998 and 2007 U.S. equity market tops, although we only have three episodes to analyze due to data limitations. Oil is a mixed bag. A peak in the price of gold led the equity market in four out of five episodes, but the lead time was long and variable. The U.S. corporate bond market offers the most consistent lead/lag relationship. Both investment- and speculative-grade excess returns relative to government bonds peaked in advance of U.S. stocks in four of the five episodes. High-yield excess returns provided the most lead time, peaking on average 154 days in advance. Excess returns to high-yield were a better signal than total returns. This leading relationship is one reason why we plan to trim exposure to corporate bonds within our bond portfolio before we scale back on equities. Base metal prices will be hit particularly hard if the 2019 U.S. recession spills over as expected to the EM economies. We may downgrade base metals from neutral to underweight around the time that we downgrade equities, but much depends on the evolution of China's economy in the coming months. Oil is a different story. OPEC 2.0 will likely cut back on supply in the face of an economic downturn, which will help keep prices elevated.7 Therefore, we may not trim energy exposure this year. In terms of equities, our recommended portfolio is still overweight cyclicals for now. Our themes of a synchronized global capex boom, rising bond yield, and firm oil price means we will stay overweight in the industrials, energy and financial sectors. Utilities and homebuilders are underweight. Tech is part of the cyclical sector, but poor valuation keeps us underweight. Our U.S. Equity Strategists have already started a gradual shift away from cyclicals toward defensives. This transition will continue in the coming months as we reduce risk. We will also shift small caps to neutral on earnings disappointments and elevated debt levels.8 Bottom Line: The economic expansion is not over, but investors are already wondering what to sell first as the next peak in equities nears. Market participants should look to trim credit exposure before scaling back on equities, and BCAs' U.S. Equity Strategy service is already scaling back on cyclicals and reduced small caps to neutral from overweight last month. At under $60/ barrel WTI, oil is 5% below our Commodity & Energy Strategy's target of $63/bbl. Moreover, global inventories will continue to draw on the back of OPEC supply restraint as shale production growth alone will not satisfy stronger global demand driven by stronger global economic growth. If prices hit the low $70 range, supply restraint and demand growth will ebb, capping incremental upside. John Canally, CFA, Senior Vice President U.S. Investment Strategy johnc@bcaresearch.com Mark McClellan, Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst markm@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see BCA Research's U.S. Equity Strategy Insight "Buy The Dip," published February 8, 2018. Available at uses.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see BCA Research's Global Investment Strategy Special Report "The Return Of Vol," published February 6, 2018. Available at gis.bcaresearch.com. 3 Please see BCA Research's Geopolitical Strategy Weekly Report "Watching Five Risks," published January 24, 2018. Available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 4 Please see BCA Research's U.S. Bond Strategy PAS "Warning Signals," published February 6, 2018. Available at usbs.bcaresearch.com. 5 Please see BCA Research's U.S. Bond Strategy PAS "Warning Signals," published February 6, 2018. Available at usbs.bcaresearch.com. 6 Please see BCA Research's The Bank Credit Analyst Monthly Report, published January 25, 2018. Available at bca.bcaresearch.com. 7 Please see BCA Research's Commodity & Energy Strategy Weekly Report "OPEC 2.0 Vs. The Fed," published February 8, 2018. Available at ces.bcaresearch.com. 8 Please see BCA Research's U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report "Too Good To Be True?," published January 22, 2018. Available at uses.bcaresearch.com.

Highlights Chart 1Waiting For A Signal TIPS breakeven inflation rates are fast approaching our end-of-cycle targets (Chart 1). The 10-year and 5-year/5-year rates are currently 2.14% and 2.36% respectively, only slightly below our target range of 2.4% to 2.5%. If this trend continues it is highly likely that we will start to slowly reduce the credit risk in our portfolio in the coming weeks. Already, we find that some lower risk spread products (Foreign Agency bonds and Munis) are attractively valued relative to corporates. But there are also risks to exiting credit too early. First and foremost is that the recent widening in TIPS breakevens might reverse before it bleeds into higher core inflation. As we noted in last week's report, the St. Louis Fed's Price Pressures Measure is still supportive of an overweight allocation to corporate bonds (Chart 1, bottom panel) and core PCE inflation has only just risen to 1.5% year-over-year.1 Investors should maintain below-benchmark duration and an overweight allocation to corporate bonds for now, but be wary that the time to make end-of-cycle preparations is drawing nearer. Feature Investment Grade: Overweight Chart 2Investment Grade Market Overview Investment grade corporate bonds outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 72 basis points in January. The average index option-adjusted spread tightened 7 bps on the month, and currently sits at 85 bps. Investment grade corporate bond spreads continue to tighten, and with each additional basis point the evidence of extreme overvaluation grows. As of today, the 12-month breakeven spread for an A-rated corporate bond has only been tighter 3% of the time since 1989 (Chart 2). The same measure for a Baa-rated bond has only been tighter 4% of the time (panel 3). Further, the average spread on the Foreign Agency bond index is now 3 bps greater than the average spread of an equivalent-duration corporate bond, despite having an average credit rating that is three notches higher (Aa2/Aa3 versus A3/Baa1). Even a 10-year Aaa-rated Municipal bond now offers 7 bps greater after-tax yield than a duration-equivalent corporate bond for investors in the top marginal tax bracket (see page 9). The bottom line is that with such poor value in investment grade corporate spreads, we only need to see a stronger signal from our inflation indicators before reducing exposure.2 Depending on how inflation (and TIPS breakevens) evolve, that time could come relatively soon. The Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey, released yesterday, showed that lending standards for commerical & industrial (C&I) loans eased somewhat in the fourth quarter of 2017, and also noted that banks expect to ease standards further on C&I loans to large and middle-market firms in 2018. Table 3ACorporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Table 3BCorporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* High-Yield: Overweight Chart 3High-Yield Market Overview High-Yield outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 149 basis points in January. The average index option-adjusted spread tightened 24 bps on the month, and currently sits at 324 bps. Last week's equity sell-off and spike in the VIX suggest that some near-term junk spread widening could be in the cards (Chart 3). However, we expect it is still a bit too soon to move out of junk bonds for the cycle. That decision will be made based on whether our inflation indicators continue to rise in the coming weeks and/or months, suggesting that the monetary policy back-drop is becoming less accommodative. In terms of value, high-yield corporates offer better risk-adjusted value than their investment grade brethren. The 12-month breakeven spread for a Ba-rated high-yield bond has currently been tighter than it is today 14% of the time since 1995. The same figure comes in at 25% for a B-rated bond and 31% for a Caa-rated bond. Similar measures for investment grade corporates are significantly lower (see page 3). Further, assuming a default rate of 2.35% for the next 12 months and a recovery rate of 51%, we calculate that a position in high-yield bonds will return 209 bps in excess of Treasuries if spreads stay flat at current levels. Another 100 bps of spread tightening would imply an excess return of just over 6%, but this would bring junk spreads to all-time tight valuations and is probably too optimistic. Remain overweight high-yield for now. MBS: Neutral Chart 4MBS Market Overview Mortgage-Backed Securities underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 15 basis points in January. The conventional 30-year zero-volatility MBS spread narrowed 2 bps on the month, all concentrated in the compensation for prepayment risk (option cost). The option-adjusted spread (OAS) was flat on the month, and currently sits at 29 bps. After having widened for most of last year, the OAS for a conventional 30-year mortgage bond is now more attractive relative to an equivalent-duration investment grade corporate bond than at any time since 2014 (Chart 4). This makes MBS a reasonably attractive sector for investors looking to shift away from corporate bonds and de-risk their spread product portfolios. Further, there would appear to be very little risk of spread widening in the MBS sector. First, the schedule of run-off from the Fed's mortgage portfolio is already well known, and likely in the price. Second, mortgage refinancings are likely to stay contained in a rising interest rate environment (bottom panel). Finally, the risk of duration extension in MBS only becomes material when Treasury yields spike higher very quickly - on the order of 72 bps or more in a month - as we showed in last week's report.3 Investors should stay at neutral on MBS for now, but stand ready to increase exposure when the time comes to move out of corporate bonds for the cycle. Government-Related: Underweight Chart 5Government-Related Market Overview The Government-Related index outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 42 basis points in January. Sovereign bonds outperformed by 118 bps, Local Authorities by 67 bps, Foreign Agencies by 54 bps, Domestic Agencies by 8 bps and Surpranationals by 3 bps. USD-denominated Sovereign bonds continue to look expensive compared to Baa-rated U.S. Credit (Chart 5), yet they still managed to deliver almost identical excess returns during the past 12 months because of the U.S. dollar's large depreciation. Going forward, with the dollar's rapid decline unlikely to accelerate, we would avoid Sovereign bonds in favor of U.S. corporates. Valuation is more attractive elsewhere in the Government-Related index. Foreign Agency bonds now offer greater spreads than equivalent-duration U.S. corporate bonds, despite benefitting from higher credit quality (panel 4). Local Authority spreads also look attractive compared to recent history (bottom panel). We continue to recommend overweight allocations to both sectors. We remain underweight Domestic Agency and Supranational bonds. Though both sectors offer low risk and high credit quality, they also only offer 12 bps and 16 bps of option-adjusted spread, respectively. We much prefer Agency-backed MBS and CMBS which are also relatively low risk and offer option-adjusted spreads of 29 bps and 40 bps, respectively. Municipal Bonds: Underweight Chart 6Municipal Market Overview Municipal bonds outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 53 basis points in January (before adjusting for the tax advantage). The average AAA-rated Municipal / Treasury (M/T) yield ratio was flat on the month. Two market technicals spurred Muni outperformance in January. First, supply plunged after many advance refunding issues were pulled forward in anticipation of the U.S. tax bill (Chart 6). Second, the repeal of the state and local tax deduction led to increased demand for Munis, as evidenced by the recent jump in fund inflows (panel 3). In terms of credit quality, state and local government net borrowing as a percent of GDP likely fell to 0.9% in 2017 Q4 - assuming that corporate tax revenues are held constant. This is consistent with current low yield ratios (panel 4). Meanwhile, tax revenue growth should stay strong in the coming quarters due to recent increases in property prices and retail sales. While M/T yield ratios remain low compared to history, excessive valuations in investment grade corporate bonds mean that Munis are starting to look attractive by comparison. For example, for investors in the top marginal tax bracket, we calculate that the after-tax yield on a Aaa-rated municipal bond is 7 bps higher than the duration-equivalent yield offered by the investment grade corporate bond index, even though the corporate bond index offers an average credit rating of only A3/Baa1. While the bottom panel shows that this yield differential has been higher in the past, it is nevertheless an indication that we are approaching the end of the credit cycle. Stay underweight Munis for now, though an upgrade is likely when it comes time to exit our corporate bond overweights. Treasury Curve: Favor 5-Year Bullet Over 2/10 Barbell Chart 7Treasury Yield Curve Overview The Treasury curve bear steepened out to the 10-year maturity point in January, as bond markets started to price-in a rebound in inflation. The 2/10 slope steepened 7 basis points on the month and the 5/30 slope flattened 11 bps. The 2/10 slope steepened even further in the first five days of February and currently sits at 69 bps, up from its recent low of 50 bps. More near-term curve steepening is possible if long-maturity TIPS breakeven inflation rates continue to widen, especially since the Fed's median projected rate hike path for the next 12 months is already fully discounted (Chart 7). However, the yield curve is much more likely to be flatter by the end of the year than it is today. In large part because the upside in long-maturity yields will be limited once TIPS breakeven inflation rates reach our target fair value range of 2.4% to 2.5%. In terms of positioning, we continue to advocate a long position in the 5-year bullet versus a short position in a duration-matched 2/10 barbell. The 5-year continues to look very cheap on the curve (panel 3), or put differently, our model suggests that the 2/5/10 butterfly spread is currently priced for 29 bps of 2/10 curve flattening during the next six months (panel 4).4 This seems excessive for the time being. TIPS: Overweight Chart 8TIPS Market Overview TIPS outperformed the duration-equivalent nominal Treasury index by 75 basis points in January. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate increased 15 bps on the month. At 2.14% and 2.36%, respectively, the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates are still below our target range of 2.4% to 2.5%, but only modestly so. The big run-up in TIPS breakeven rates coincided with a jump in oil prices and, as we discussed in a recent report, this is no coincidence (Chart 8).5 The Fed has an asymmetric ability to influence inflation - it has an unlimited ability to tighten policy but its ability to ease policy is restricted by the zero-lower bound on interest rates. It is for this reason that when TIPS breakeven inflation rates become un-anchored to the downside, they also become much more sensitive to swings in commodity prices. In these environments the market sees inflation as increasingly determined by price pressures in the economy and not by the Fed's reaction function. The logical conclusion is that we should expect the tight correlation between oil prices and long-maturity TIPS breakeven rates to persist until breakevens reach our target fair value range of 2.4% to 2.5%. At that point, it is unlikely that further increases in commodity prices would filter through to long-maturity breakevens, because the market would anticipate a tightening response from the Fed. Stay overweight TIPS versus nominal Treasury securities for now. We will reduce exposure when our fair value target of 2.4% to 2.5% is achieved. ABS: Neutral Chart 9ABS Market Overview Asset-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 4 basis points in January. The index option-adjusted spread (OAS) for Aaa-rated ABS tightened 2 bps on the month and now stands at 33 bps, only 6 bps above its all-time low (Chart 9). All in all, a 33 bps spread is still reasonably attractive for a sector that is Aaa rated with an average duration of 2. By way of comparison, the intermediate maturity Aaa Credit index offers an OAS of only 17 bps and has an average duration above 3. However, credit trends are clearly shifting against the Consumer ABS sector. The consumer credit delinquency rate has put in a bottom, albeit from a very healthy level, and the trend in the household debt service ratio suggests that delinquencies will continue to rise (panel 3). Further, the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey shows that lending standards on auto loans have tightened on net in each of the past 7 quarters, while credit card lending standards have tightened for 3 consecutive quarters. Even though lending standards on both auto loans and credit cards moved slightly closer to net easing territory in the fourth quarter of 2017, the reading from lending standards is still consistent with a rising delinquency rate (bottom panel). We retain a neutral allocation to consumer ABS due to still attractive spreads for a low-duration, high credit quality sector. However, if the uptrend in consumer delinquencies is sustained then our next move will probably be to reduce allocation to this sector. Non-Agency CMBS: Underweight Chart 10CMBS Market Overview Non-Agency Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 60 basis points in January. The index option-adjusted spread for non-agency Aaa-rated CMBS tightened 7 bps on the month and currently sits at 59 bps. The spread is now only 8 bps above the lowest level seen since the inception of the index in 2000 (Chart 10). Much like in the Consumer ABS sector, historically low CMBS spreads are observed at a time when lending standards are tightening in the commercial real estate (CRE) sector. The Federal Reserve's most recent Senior Loan Officer Survey shows that lending standards for nonfarm nonresidential CRE loans have tightened for 10 consecutive quarters, though they have been tightening less aggressively of late (panel 3). Agency CMBS: Overweight Agency CMBS outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 14 basis points in January. The index option-adjusted spread narrowed 1 bp on the month and currently sits at 40 bps. With an average spread of 40 bps and an average duration of around 5, this sector is not quite as attractive as Consumer ABS on a spread per unit of duration basis. However, it still offers greater expected compensation than a position in Conventional 30-year residential MBS which has an option-adjusted spread of 29 bps and a similar duration. Treasury Valuation Chart 11Treasury Fair Value Models The current reading from our 2-factor Treasury model (based on Global PMI and dollar sentiment) pegs fair value for the 10-year Treasury yield at 3.01% (Chart 11). Our 3-factor version of the model (not shown), which also incorporates the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, places fair value at 3.06%. The Global PMI actually ticked down in January, but only slightly from 54.5 to 54.4. This small decline was more than offset in our model by the large drop in dollar sentiment, which just moved into "net bearish" territory (bottom panel). Of the four major economic blocs, PMIs increased in the U.S. and Japan, ticked down from an extremely high level in the Eurozone and held steady in China. For further details on our Treasury models please refer to U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Message From Our Treasury Models", dated October 11, 2016, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com. At the time of publication the 10-year Treasury yield was 2.84%. Ryan Swift, Vice President U.S. Bond Strategy rswift@bcaresearch.com Alex Wang, Research Analyst alexw@bcaresearch.com Jeremie Peloso, Research Assistant jeremiep@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Most Important Chart In Finance", dated January 30, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Most Important Chart In Finance", dated January 30, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Most Important Chart In Finance", dated January 30, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 4 For further details on our model please see U.S. Bond Strategy Special Report, "Bullets, Barbells And Butterflies", dated July 25, 2017, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 5 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "It's Still All About Inflation", dated January 16, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com Fixed Income Sector Performance Recommended Portfolio Specification Corporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation Total Return Comparison: 7-Year Bullet Versus 2-20 Barbell (6-Month Investment Horizon)

Highlights Portfolio Strategy Recovering energy related capex and upbeat oil prices are a powerful tonic for the S&P integrated oil & gas index. Augment positions to overweight. A diverging crude/refined product inventory backdrop, narrowing Brent-WTI crude oil spread, and extreme analyst optimism warn that the easy money has been made in refiners. Lock in profits and downgrade to a benchmark allocation. Recent Changes S&P Integrated Oil & Gas - Upgrade to overweight. S&P Oil & Gas Refining & Marketing - Book profits of 9% and downgrade to neutral today. Table 1 Feature Chart 1Vertigo Alert Equities have been rising at a dizzying speed year-to-date, as investors have extrapolated the tax reform EPS tailwind far into the future in a very short time span. The risk of a tactical, and likely short lived, 5-10% pullback is very high. Putting this potential correction in perspective is in order. A drop in the SPX to near its 50-day moving average would set the market back 6%, to near the 2,700 mark. As a reminder, the S&P 500 crossed 2,700 on January 3, 2018. A 10% drawdown would push the market below 2,600, a level first surpassed on Black Friday (Chart 1). While steep stock price increases are not unprecedented, at the current juncture all of our tactical indicators suggest that caution is warranted (please refer to the January 22 and January 29 Weekly Reports for more details). The way we recommend defending against such exuberance is to book gains in high-beta pair trades, institute trailing stops to the high-conviction list high flyers (see page 19) and make some subsurface changes to intra-sector positioning. From a cyclical perspective we remain constructive on the broad market and given our view of no recession in the coming 9-12 months our investment strategy is to "buy the dip". Chart 2 shows our S&P 500 EPS model using trailing EPS data directly from Standard & Poor's. Calendar 2017 profit growth is on track to hit 17% year-over-year. Chart 3 shows our S&P 500 EPS model using IBES trailing EPS data. We decided to regress the same variables on the IBES trailing EPS dataset since the market trades on the forward EPS from IBES. According to IBES, calendar 2017 EPS growth will hit 12%, so there is a 5% delta between the two datasets. Our understanding of the difference between the two numbers is what each provider considers one time I/S items. Currently, IBES bottom-up forecasts pencil in 18% growth in calendar 2018 and our model suggests that 21% is possible (Chart 3). S&P forecasts call for a 23% calendar 2018 increase and our model is pointing toward 24% (Chart 2). Chart 2No Matter The Data Set... Chart 3...EPS Will Shine In 2018 Irrespective of what data one uses the signal is clear: EPS will have a blowout year in 2018. Studying such EPS reacceleration phases is very interesting. Since the mid-1980s there have been four other periods where EPS exhibited breakneck growth (excluding the GFC, Chart 3). Importantly, we analyzed what the prevalent macro conditions were in all four iterations and Charts A1-A4 in the Appendix on page 16 detail the results. In all iterations, the 10-year Treasury yield was rising, the ISM manufacturing survey was well above the 50 boom/bust line, the U.S. dollar was falling, and crude oil prices were increasing. Currently, we believe reaching and even surpassing the 20% EPS growth rate number in 2018 is likely, given the similarities between the current macro backdrop and these four prior periods (Chart 4). However, this does not necessarily mean that there will be no stock market volatility and equites will increase uninterruptedly in a straight line. Chart 5 shows how the S&P 500 performed in these four periods and in all of them short-term tactical pullbacks occurred. We think 2018 will prove no different. This week we update our view on a deep cyclical sector and tweak our intra-sector positioning. Chart 4Favorable Macro Conditions... Chart 5...But Don't Get Carried Away Stay Long Energy... We put the S&P energy sector on our high-conviction overweight list in late-November as a key beneficiary of our synchronized global capex theme.1 Since then, the broad energy complex has bested the S&P 500 by over 3%, and our macro indicators suggest that more gains are in store for this deep cyclical sector. The Dallas Fed manufacturing outlook survey is firing on all cylinders and, given the importance of oil to the state of Texas, it serves as an excellent gauge for oil activity. Importantly, the capital expenditures part of the survey hit the highest level in a decade. Similarly, capex intentions in the coming six months are also probing multi-year highs and signaling that the budding recovery in energy capital budgets will likely gain steam (middle panel, Chart 6). Following the late-2015/early-2016 drubbing in oil prices, energy projects ground to a halt and only now are green shoots appearing (bottom panel, Chart 6). Indeed, rising oil prices are providing a much needed assist. Higher crude prices make more global projects economical and coupled with the steadily lower breakeven costs of shale oil suggest that EPS and sales growth normalcy is likely to return to this commodity complex. Moreover, the indiscriminate selling of the U.S. dollar explains part of the oil price rise, but other macro forces are also at play (Chart 7). Chart 6Capex Theme Beneficiary Chart 7Catch Up Phase Looming Chart 8Levered To Global Growth##BR## And Rising Inflation Similar to "Dr. Copper", crude oil prices are an excellent global growth barometer. In fact, oil price swings move in lockstep with the ebb and flow of global output growth and the current message is positive (Chart 8). Not only is our proprietary measure of global Industrial Production rising, but the multi-year high in the forward looking global manufacturing PMI survey also suggests that more good news on the global economic front lies ahead. As unemployment gaps close around the world, with more and more countries following in the U.S.'s footsteps toward full employment, inflation is bound to reaccelerate. Recently, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has been on a tear driven mostly by rising inflation expectations. Higher interest rates is another key BCA theme for 2018 and energy stocks also stand to benefit from this rising interest rate backdrop. Historically, relative share prices have been positively correlated both with bond yields and inflation expectations and the current message is to expect a catch up phase in the former (bottom panel, Chart 8). Beyond an enticing macro backdrop, favorable industry supply/demand dynamics are a harbinger of sunnier energy days. OECD oil stocks are receding steadily and so are U.S. crude oil inventories. The implication is that relative share prices will remain well bid (oil inventories shown inverted, middle panel, Chart 9). OPEC 2.0 remains in place and will likely balance the oil market by continuing to constrain supply. Our Commodity & Energy Strategy service is still penciling in higher oil prices for 2018. On the demand side, emerging markets/Chinese demand is the key determinant of overall oil demand, and the news on this front is encouraging and consistent with BCA's synchronized global growth theme: following the recent lull, non-OECD demand is growing anew roughly by 1.5mn bbl/day. The upshot is that S&P energy relative revenues will climb out of the recent trough (bottom panel, Chart 9). Our energy profit model does an excellent job capturing all of these different forces and is signaling that energy EPS will easily outpace the SPX and continue to capture a larger share of the broad market's earnings pie (Chart 10). Chart 9Favorable Supply/Demand Backdrop Chart 10EPS Model Flashing Green Bottom Line: We reiterate our high-conviction overweight call in the S&P energy index. ...Boost The Integrated Oil & Gas Index To Overweight, But... Factors are falling into place for the heavyweight S&P integrated oil & gas index to generate outsized returns in the coming year, and we are compelled to lift this beaten-down energy sub-index to an above benchmark allocation. Investment spending and relative performance are one and the same for this capital-outlay-reliant group. The time to buy these capital intensive high-operating leverage stocks is during a capex upcycle when a virtuous EPS cycle takes root. The opposite is also true. Earlier this decade, the energy sector's share of the U.S. stock market reported capex pie got halved to 16% (top panel, Chart 11). While we are not calling for a return to the heyday of triple digit oil, even a modest renormalization of capital spending would go a long way. Recent news that Exxon Mobil would bump domestic capital spending to $50bn over the next five years is a step in the right direction. New projects/investments comprise 70% of this figure. The company cited the new U.S. tax law as a reason behind the announcement, and tax reform has the potential to drive industry capex plans/budgets. Our sense is that more announcements like the Exxon Mobil one may be brewing and could serve as a catalyst to unlock excellent value in the S&P integrated oil & gas index. Meanwhile, higher oil prices will result in a pickup in global energy project outlays. The top panel of Chart 12 shows that the global oil & gas rig count is rebounding from an extremely depressed level. Encouragingly, these investments will likely pay dividends and translate into cash flow growth extending the virtuous upcycle (bottom panel, Chart 12). Chart 11Buy Oil Majors Chart 12Prime Beneficiary Of Rising Capex As we mentioned earlier in the energy section, BCA still has a sanguine 2018 oil view, and if it pans out, it will continue to underpin not only the broad energy space, but also oil majors. Action in the commodity pits corroborates that the path of least resistance is higher both for the underlying commodity and relative share prices. Crude oil net speculative positions just hit a record high as a percent of open interest (bottom panel, Chart 13). Similarly, consensus on oil just breached the 50 line and is now in bullish territory, signaling that momentum in the relative share price ratio will gain steam in the coming months (middle panel, Chart 13). Adding it up, recovering energy related capex coupled with upbeat oil prices are a powerful tonic for the S&P integrated oil & gas index. Under such a backdrop a valuation rerating phase is looming (Chart 14). Chart 13Encouraging Oil Market Dynamics Chart 14Cheap With A 150bps Dividend Carry Bottom Line: Boost the S&P integrated oil & gas index to overweight. This index also sports a 150bps positive dividend carry. The ticker symbols for the stocks in this index are: XOM, CVX & OXY. ...Take Profits In Refiners While we recommend upgrading the S&P integrated oil & gas index to overweight, we are booking gains of 9% in the niche S&P oil & gas refining & marketing index and downgrading to a benchmark allocation. We upgraded refiners to overweight in early September, as a way to capitalize on the havoc that hurricane season dealt to refining capacity. Since then, our portfolio has benefited handsomely from the run up in refining stocks, but we do not want to overstay our welcome in this niche space as refinery runs have now returned to normal (Chart 15). Moreover, a number of headwinds signal that the easy gains are already behind this group. First, refining margins are under pressure as the Brent-WTI crude oil spread is steadily narrowing. Historically, refining margins and this oil price spread have been joined at the hip and the current message is negative for margins. A diverging inventory backdrop also points toward margin trouble ahead. Refined product inventories are outpacing crude oil supplies, warning that a further softening in crack spreads is in the cards (bottom panel, Chart 16). In fact, crude oil inventories are whittled down, whereas gasoline and distillate fuel stocks are built up (middle panel, Chart 15). This inventory accumulation represents, at the margin, a challenging pricing outlook for refiners. Chart 15Return To Normalcy... Chart 16...But Cracks Are Forming Worrisomely, sell side analysts have been extrapolating a euphoric EPS backdrop far into the future with five year profit forecasts pushing all-time highs. While tax reform represents a one-time boost to EPS in 2018, we cannot comprehend how this highly cyclical industry with razor thin margins can attain 34% EPS growth for the next 3-5 years, outpacing the overall market by a staggering 20 percentage points (Chart 17). Putting this sky-high long-term EPS growth number in perspective is instructive. Typically, relative share prices hit a wall when such analyst optimism reigns. The tech sector in the late 1990s, biotech stocks twice in 2001 and 2014, and semi equipment stocks late last year all suffered a major setback when long-term profit forecasts catapulted near the 25% mark (Chart 17). (As a reminder chip equipment stocks are a high-conviction underweight and have benefitted our portfolio by 17.2% since the November 27th inception, please see page 19.) Finally, from a technical perspective, a bearish pennant formation with lower highs has formed and is warning that a breakdown is possible in the relative share price ratio in the coming quarters (top panel, Chart 16). Nevertheless, we refrain from turning outright bearish on refiners as there is a sizeable offset. Refined product consumption is as firm as ever. Gasoline demand remains upbeat and this indicator has historically been positively correlated with relative share prices, relative 12-month forward EPS and relative valuations (Chart 18). Chart 17Watch Out Down Below Chart 18Consumption Is A Positive Offset Any let-up in demand or a further jump in refined product inventories could prove deflationary for refiners and were that to take place we would not hesitate to further prune exposure to a below benchmark allocation. Bottom Line: Lock in profits of 9% in the S&P oil & gas refining & marketing index and downgrade to neutral. The ticker symbols for the stocks in this index are: PSX, VLO, MPC and ANDV. Anastasios Avgeriou, Vice President U.S. Equity Strategy anastasios@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report, "High-Conviction Calls," dated November 27, 2017, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. Appendix Chart A1 Chart A2 Chart A3 Chart A4 Current Recommendations Current Trades Size And Style Views Favor value over growth. Stay neutral small over large caps (downgrade alert).

The GAA DM Equity Country Allocation model is updated as of January 31, 2018. The model has made large shifts in country allocations. The U.S. is upgraded to neutral from previously the largest underweight, driven largely by technical conditions. It seems dramatic, but as shown in Chart 2, the model did have similar large shifts in the past as well. Canada also has received a large increase to overweight driven by extremely attractive valuation. To fund these upgrades, the previously largest overweight in Italy is cut in half (mainly driven by liquidity and valuation) and Australia is back to underweight (trading places with Canada). As a result, the model now is overweight the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Canada and Spain, neutral on the U.S. and underweight Japan, the U.K., France, Australia and Sweden as shown in Table 1. As shown in Table 2 and Chart 1, Chart 2 and Chart 3, the overall model outperformed its benchmark by 99 bps in January, largely driven by the Level 2 model which outperformed by 207 bps, thanks to the underweights in the U.K., Japan and Canada vs. the overweights in Italy, the Netherlands and Germany. Since going live in January 2016, the overall model has outperformed the benchmark by 190 bps, largely from the allocation among the 11 non-U.S. countries, which has outperformed its benchmark by 570 bps. The Level 1 model has performed in line with the MSCI world benchmark. Chart 1GAA DM Model Vs. MSCI World Chart 2GAA U.S. Vs. Non U.S. Model (Level1) Chart 3GAA Non U.S. Model (Level 2) Table 1Model Allocation Vs. Benchmark Weights Table 2Performance (Total Returns In USD) Please see also the website http://gaa.bcaresearch.com/trades/allocation_performance. For more details on the models, please see the January 29, 2016 Special Report, "Global Equity Allocation: Introducing the Developed Markets Country Allocation Model." http://gaa.bcaresearch.com/articles/view_report/18850. 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. GAA Equity Sector Selection Model The GAA Equity Sector Selection Model (Chart 4) is updated as of January 31, 2018. The model continues to be bullish on global growth as seen by a 10% aggregate overweight in the cyclical sectors. The model continues to hold equal underweights in consumer staples, health care, telecom and utilities stocks. Looking forward, we believe improving global growth dynamics, and rising equity markets will help us maintain an aggregate cyclical pro-growth bias. For more details on the model, please see the Special Report "Introducing The GAA Equity Sector Selection Model," July 27, 2016 available at https://gaa.bcaresearch.com. Chart 4Overall Model Performance Table 3Allocations Table 4Performance Since Going Live Xiaoli Tang, Associate Vice President xiaoli@bcaresearch.com Aditya Kurian, Research Analyst adityak@bcaresearch.com

Watch Inflation Expectations How much longer can this go on? Global equities were up 6% in January alone (the 15th consecutive month of positive returns), and investors are increasingly asking how much further this bull market has to run. There are no signs we can see that suggest it will end imminently. Our watch-list of key recession indicators (decline in global PMIs, inverted yield curve, rise in credit spreads - Chart 1) is sending no warning signals. U.S. GDP growth was a little weaker than expected in Q4, at 2.6% QoQ annualized, but this was mainly due to inventories and strong imports: final private demand, a better guide to future growth, was strong at 4.3%. Fed NowCasts for Q1 growth point to 3.1-4.2%. The euro zone grew even faster than the U.S. last year, and even Japan probably saw 1.8% GDP growth. Corporate earnings expectations have accelerated sharply over just the past few weeks - particularly in the U.S. as a result of the tax cuts (Chart 2) - with analysts now expecting 16% EPS growth for the S&P 500 this year. BCA U.S. Equity Strategy service's earnings models suggest that this forecast may still be too cautious (Chart 3). Recommended Allocation Chart 1No Recession Signals Flashing Chart 2A Dramatic Rise In Earnings Forecasts... Chart 3...But Forecasts May Still Be Too Cautious While it is true that equity valuations are stretched, particularly in the U.S. (with BCA's Composite Valuation Index having just tipped into the "Extremely Overvalued" zone - Chart 4), valuations are not usually a good timing tool. Investor euphoria seems not yet to have reached the extremes that usually characterize a bull-market peak. The message we hear consistently from wealth managers is that their clients who missed last year's rally are now looking to get into risk assets. The American Association of Individual Investors' latest weekly survey shows 45% bulls to 24% bears - not especially optimistic by past standards (Chart 5). Flows into equity funds have started to accelerate, but have been weaker than bond flows over the past year (Chart 6). Chart 4U.S. Equities Now 'Extremely Overvalued' Chart 5Investors Are Not Particularly Bullish Chart 6Flows Into Equities Starting To Accelerate Chart 7Key: Inflation Expectations Getting to 2.5% We think the key to timing the top lies in inflation expectations. With the U.S. economy at full capacity and unemployment at 4.1%, well below the NAIRU of 4.6%, the Fed believes that a pick-up in inflation is just a matter of time - an analysis we agree with. The market has started to come round to this view too, with implied inflation rising by about 40 BPs over the past two months (Chart 7). The market has now priced in a 65% probability of the Fed's projected three rate hikes this year, and even a 27% probability of four. Inflation expectations hitting 2.5% (which would be compatible with the Fed's 2% PCE inflation target - CPI inflation is typically 50 BPs higher) could be the tipping-point. This is because it would remove the Fed put - with inflation expectations elevated, the Fed would no longer be able to back off from tightening in the event of a global risk-off event such as a stock-market correction or a slowdown in China. Such a rise in inflation expectations would also push the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield above 3%, which would increase the attraction of fixed income, and represent a threat to highly indebted borrowers, especially in emerging markets. This is how bull markets typically end: with the Fed having to raise rates to choke off inflation, and either making a policy mistake or tightening monetary policy enough to slow growth. But all this is probably quite a few months away. We expect to turn more defensive perhaps late this year, ahead of a recession that we have for some time now penciled in for the second half of 2019. Given how advanced the cycle is, conservative investors primarily concerned with capital preservation might look to dial down risk or hedge exposure now. But investors focused on quarterly performance should ride the bull market until some of the warning signals mentioned above begin to flash. For now, therefore, we continue to recommend an overweight in equities relative to bonds on the 12-month investment horizon, and mostly pro-risk and pro-cyclical tilts. Equities: We continue to prefer developed over emerging equities. EM will be hurt by the slowdown likely in China (where money supply and credit growth have fallen in response to the authorities' tighter policies - Chart 8), rising U.S. interest rates, sluggish productivity growth, and valuations that are no longer particularly cheap (Chart 9). Within DM, we are overweight euro zone and Japanese equities, which should benefit from their higher beta, more cyclical earnings, still accommodative monetary policy, and cheaper valuations than the U.S. Our sector bets are tilted to late-cycle value sectors such as financials, industrials and energy. Chart 8Tighter Monetary Conditions in China Chart 9EM No Longer Cheap Fixed Income: Rising inflation expectations should push the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield up to 3% this year, with German Bunds rising by a similar amount. We recommend an underweight on duration, and a preference for inflation-linked over nominal bonds, in these markets. In the U.K. and Australia, however, central banks are unlikely to tighten as quickly as futures markets have priced in and so we prefer their government bonds. While the expansion continues, spread product should continue to outperform in the fixed-income bucket. The default-adjusted spread on U.S. high-yield bonds remains over 200 BP and, though we see little further spread contraction, carry alone makes this attractive. Currencies: BCA was correct last year to predict a widening of interest-rate differentials between the U.S. and the euro zone, but wrong to conclude that this would lead to a stronger dollar (Chart 10). The drivers of currencies can undergo regime shifts, and it seems now that valuation (both the euro and yen are cheap compared to their purchasing power parity, 1.32 and 99 to the U.S. dollar respectively), current account surpluses (3.3% for the euro zone and 3.7% for Japan), and other factors have become more important. Tactically, the euro, in particular, looks very overbought. Speculative investors are very long euros, the ECB is likely to remain dovish relative to the Fed, and the strong euro could put some downward pressure on growth in the short-term. However, if the dollar were to rebound by 5% or so we would be likely to end our dollar bull call. Chart 10Rate Differentials No Longer Moving Currencies Chart 11Oil Supply To Increase In 2019 Commodities: Oil prices have risen on the back of strong global demand, OPEC discipline, and a lag in the response of U.S. shale oil producers. We forecast an average of $67 a barrel for Brent crude this year, with spikes to as high as $80 in the event of disruptions in producer countries such as Venezuela. However, with one-year forward crude prices around $62, shale producers (whose marginal costs average about $52 a barrel) are likely to pick up production soon. OPEC, too, should be happy with crude around $50-60. Our energy team forecasts a pick-up in supply next year (Chart 11), which should bring the crude price down to an average of $55 in 2019. Industrial commodities are a product of Chinese demand, global growth, and the U.S. dollar. These drivers look likely to be mixed over the coming months and so we remain neutral. Gold has risen, in the face of rising interest rates, because of the weak dollar - it remains an excellent hedge against inflation, recession, and geopolitical risks and so should be a modest part of any balanced portfolio. Garry Evans, Senior Vice President Global Asset Allocation garry@bcaresearch.com GAA Asset Allocation

Highlights The German 10-year bund yield rising to 1%, or the U.S. 10-year T-bond yield rising to 3% would be a trigger to downgrade equities and upgrade bonds... ...especially as the blue sky expectations for global growth in H1 2018 will turn out to be overly-optimistic. On a 6-9 month horizon, upgrade Airlines to overweight. Downgrade Banks to underweight. Upgrade Germany (DAX) to neutral. Downgrade Italy (MIB) and Spain (IBEX) to underweight. Feature Where has the equity market cycle gone? Since 2012, the stock market's 6-month returns have generated an unprecedented consistency, with only a brief breakdown - at the end of 2015 - into negative territory (Chart of the Wesk and Chart I-2). Chart of the WeekSince 2012, The Equity Market ##br##Cycle Has Disappeared Chart I-2Much Less Cyclicality In Equities ##br##Than In Commodities The disappearance of the equity market cycle brings to mind the concept of the "Great Moderation", a term coined in 2002 to describe the big drop in business cycle volatility during the 1990s. In 2004, Ben Bernanke suggested that "improvements in monetary policy, though certainly not the only factor, probably were an important source of the Great Moderation." Today's Great Moderation 2.0 refers to the equity market cycle - or rather, its disappearance. And in finding a reason for the Great Moderation 2.0, Bernanke's attribution to monetary policy might be right on the money. Stick With TINA, Or Flirt With TIA? For many years, ultra-accommodative monetary policy has provided a consistent and substantial uplift to world stock market valuations. Since 2012, our preferred measure of equity market valuation - world stock market capitalisation to GDP - has almost doubled. This inexorable and relatively trouble-free rise has even spawned its own acronym: TINA - There Is No Alternative (to owning equities.) However, the uplift to stock market valuations has happened in a less obvious way than you might realise. Based on the excellent predictive power of stock market capitalisation to GDP, the prospective 10-year annualised return from world equities has collapsed from 9% in 2012 to 1.5% now (Chart I-3). Over the same period, the global 10-year bond yield has compressed from 3% to 1.5%. Hence, the collapse in prospective equity returns is not due to the decline in bond yields per se. It has happened mostly because the excess return offered by equities over bonds - the so-called 'equity risk premium' has compressed from 6% to zero (Chart I-4). Chart I-3World Equity Market Cap To GDP Implies##br## A Feeble Prospective 10-Year Return Chart I-4Prospective Equity Returns ##br##Have Become 'Bond Like' Ultra-accommodative monetary policy has caused the disappearance of the equity risk premium. The simple reason is that at low bond yields, the risk of owning bonds becomes similar to the risk of owning equities. Chart I-5Below A 2% Yield, 10-Year Bonds Have ##br##More Negative Skew Than Equities When bond yields approach their lower bound, bond prices have little upside but they have a lot of downside. This ratio of an investment's potential losses relative to its potential gains is the risk that most frightens investors,1 and is known as negative skew. At yields below 2%, bond returns become as negatively skewed as equity returns, or even more negatively skewed than equities (Chart I-5). As the risk of bonds increases to become 'equity-like', the prospective return from equities must compress to become 'bond-like'. Which is to say, equity valuations become substantially richer. All well and good - so long as the global 10-year bond yield stays low. Above a 2% yield, the negative skew on bond returns disappears, and equities once again require an excess prospective return over bonds. More colloquially, investors would dump TINA and start flirting with TIA (There Is an Alternative). In essence, a big threat to the Great Moderation 2.0 comes the global 10-year bond yield rising to 2% - broadly equivalent to the German 10-year bund yield rising to 1%, or the U.S. 10-year T-bond yield rising to 3%. Any moves towards these thresholds would be a trigger to downgrade equities and upgrade bonds - especially as we now explain why the blue sky expectations for global growth in H1 2018 will turn out to be overly-optimistic. The Equity Sector Cycle Is Alive And Well For the stock market in aggregate, the cycle has been moribund. But for equity sector relative performance, the cycle is very much alive and well. In The Cobweb Theory And Market Cycles 2 we showed and explained the existence of mini-cycles in economic and financial variables. To summarise, a lag between the demand for credit and its supply necessarily creates mini-cycles in both the price of credit (the bond yield) and the quantity of credit (the global credit impulse). Thereby it also creates mini-cycles in GDP growth. The useful point is that these cycles are very regular with half-cycles averaging 6-8 months. Which makes their turning points and phases predictable. Given that the global credit impulse cycle has been in a mini-upswing phase since last May, it is highly likely to turn into a mini-downswing phase through the first half of 2018. The latest data point, showing a tick down, seems to corroborate such a turning point. From an equity sector perspective, Banks versus Healthcare has closely tracked the phases of the credit impulse mini-cycle (Chart I-6). In all five of the last five mini-downswings, Banks have underperformed Healthcare, and we would expect no difference in the next mini-downswing. Hence, on a 6-9 month horizon, downgrade Banks to underweight. Unsurprisingly, exactly the same pattern applies to Basic Materials (and Energy) versus Healthcare (Chart I-7). Hence, on a 6-9 month horizon, stay underweight Basic Materials and Energy versus Healthcare. Also unsurprisingly, the performance of European Airlines is a mirror-image of the oil price cycle, given that aviation fuel comprises the sector's main variable cost (Chart I-8). As an aside, this also somewhat insulates the European Airlines against a strengthening euro, given that this variable cost is priced in dollars. Hence, on a 6-9 month horizon, upgrade European Airlines to overweight. Chart I-6Banks Vs. Healthcare Tracks The ##br##Credit Impulse Mini-Cycle Chart I-7Materials Vs. Healthcare Tracks The##br## Credit Impulse Mini-Cycle Chart I-8European Airlines Relative Performance Is A##br## Mirror-Image of The Oil Price Cycle Country Allocation Just Drops Out Of Sector Allocation Our core philosophy of investment reductionism teaches us that for most stock markets, the sector (and dominant company) skews swamp any effect that comes from the domestic economy. For example, the defining skew for Italy's MIB and Spain's IBEX is their large overweighting to banks. So unsurprisingly, MIB and IBEX relative performance reduces to: will banks outperform the market? (Chart I-9 and Chart I-10). Chart I-9Italy = Long Banks Chart I-10Spain = Long Banks Therefore, the key consideration for European equity country allocation is always: how to allocate to the vital few equity sectors that feature most often in the skews: Banks, Healthcare, Energy and Materials. To reiterate, our 6-9 month recommendation is to underweight Banks, Materials And Energy versus Healthcare, and to overweight Airlines versus the market. Then to arrive at a country allocation, combine the cyclical view on the vital few sectors with the country sector skews shown in Box I-1. Even if you disagree with our sector views, the sector-based approach is the right way to pick European equity markets. If you agree with our sector views, the result is the following updated European equity market allocation: Box I-1: The Vital Few Sector Skews That Drive Country Relative Performance For major equity indexes in the euro area, the dominant sector skews that drive relative performance are as follows: Germany (DAX) is overweight Chemicals, underweight Banks. France (CAC) is underweight Banks and Basic Materials. Italy (MIB) is overweight Banks. Spain (IBEX) is overweight Banks. Netherlands (AEX) is overweight Technology, underweight Banks. Ireland (ISEQ) is overweight Airlines (Ryanair) which is, in effect, underweight Energy. And for major equity indexes outside the euro area: The U.K. (FTSE100) is effectively underweight the pound. Switzerland (SMI) is overweight Healthcare, underweight Energy. Sweden (OMX) is overweight Industrials. Denmark (OMX20) is overweight Healthcare and Industrials. Norway (OBX) is overweight Energy. The U.S. (S&P500) is overweight Technology, underweight Banks. Overweight: France, Ireland, U.K., Switzerland and Denmark. Neutral: Germany, Netherlands. Underweight: Italy, Spain, Sweden and Norway. In terms of change, it means upgrading Germany (DAX) to neutral and downgrading Italy (MIB) and Spain (IBEX) to underweight. Dhaval Joshi, Senior Vice President Chief European Investment Strategist dhaval@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see the European Investment Strategy Weekly Report "Are Bonds A Greater Risk Than Equities", January 28, 2018 available at eis.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see the European Investment Strategy Weekly Report "The Cobweb Theory And Market Cycles", January 11, 2018 available at eis.bcaresearch.com. Fractal Trading Model* There is a lot of optimism already priced into the South African rand, making it vulnerable to a countertrend reversal. Therefore, this week's recommended trade is to go long USD/ZAR with a profit-target of 6% and a symmetrical stop-loss. In other trades, short S&P500/long Eurostoxx50 hit its stop-loss, while short Japanese energy and short palladium moved comfortably into profit. For any investment, excessive trend following and groupthink can reach a natural point of instability, at which point the established trend is highly likely to break down with or without an external catalyst. An early warning sign is the investment's fractal dimension approaching its natural lower bound. Encouragingly, this trigger has consistently identified countertrend moves of various magnitudes across all asset classes. Chart I-11 The post-June 9, 2016 fractal trading model rules are: When the fractal dimension approaches the lower limit after an investment has been in an established trend it is a potential trigger for a liquidity-triggered trend reversal. Therefore, open a countertrend position. The profit target is a one-third reversal of the preceding 13-week move. Apply a symmetrical stop-loss. Close the position at the profit target or stop-loss. Otherwise close the position after 13 weeks. Use the position size multiple to control risk. The position size will be smaller for more risky positions. * For more details please see the European Investment Strategy Special Report "Fractals, Liquidity & A Trading Model," dated December 11, 2014, available at eis.bcaresearch.com Fractal Trading Model Recommendations Equities Bond & Interest Rates Currency & Other Positions Closed Fractal Trades Trades Closed Trades Asset Performance Currency & Bond Equity Sector Country Equity Indicators Bond Yields Chart II-1Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Chart II-2Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Chart II-3Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Chart II-4Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Interest Rate Chart II-5Indicators To Watch ##br##- Interest Rate Expectations Chart II-6Indicators To Watch ##br##- Interest Rate Expectations Chart II-7Indicators To Watch ##br##- Interest Rate Expectations Chart II-8Indicators To Watch ##br##- Interest Rate Expectations

Highlights Portfolio Strategy A stable China, a depreciating U.S. dollar, rising commodity prices and sustained synchronized global growth signal that the industrials complex, especially the most cyclical part, remains on a solid footing. Deteriorating profit prospects warn that investors should refrain from paying a premium valuation for industrial machinery; take profits and move to the sidelines. Recent Changes S&P Industrial Machinery - Book profits of 4% and downgrade to neutral today. S&P Construction Machinery & Heavy Truck - Stop triggered last week, remove from the high-conviction list for a 10% gain. Small Caps / Large Caps - Downgrade alert in a recent Insight. Table 1 Feature The S&P 500 smashed through the 2,800 mark last week, as corporate profits continued to deliver, the U.S. dollar took a dive and global economic data releases held their own. Stars could not be more aligned for a euphoric blow off phase, with equity bourses the world over already registering annual-like returns in but a few short weeks. While stocks have more room to run, especially versus bonds, on a cyclical time frame, tactically the likelihood of a short-term healthy pullback is increasing. Last week we identified five indicators we are closely monitoring that are signaling an overstretched market.1 This week we update our Complacency-Anxiety Indicator that also catapulted to all-time highs and breached the one standard deviation above the historical mean mark (Chart 1). This confirms that a Q1 setback remains likely, and our strategy since December 18 has been to monetize gains in tactical trades and institute stops to the high flyers in our high-conviction call list. Were a 5-10% correction to materialize, we would "buy the dip" as we do not foresee a recession in the coming 9-12 months. While consumer price inflation is nowhere to be found, corporate selling prices are climbing at a brisk pace. The U.S. dollar debasement and related commodity reflex rebound, especially in oil prices, are the culprits, and the latter will likely assist even the CPI basket and morph into an inflationary impulse as we posited in late-November (please see the bottom two panels of Chart 1B). Already, inflation expectations are headed higher. Chart 2 updates our corporate sector pricing power proxy and our diffusion index. It also updates the business sector's overall wage inflation and associated diffusion index from the latest BLS employment report. The middle panel of Chart 2 shows the Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker and that measure of wage inflation has converged down to the AHE reading, suffering a 100bps drop in the past year. Chart 1Complacency Reigns Chart 2Margin Expansion Phase Is Intact Corporate pricing power is upbeat at a time when wages are decelerating. Taken together, our margin proxy indicator suggests that the ongoing profit margin expansion phase has more upside (bottom panel, Chart 2). Table 2 shows our updated industry group pricing power gauges, which we calculate from the relevant CPI, PPI, PCE and commodity growth rates for each of the 60 industry groups we track. Table 2 also highlights shorter-term pricing power trends and each industry's spread to overall inflation. Table 2Industry Group Pricing Power 78% of the industries we cover are lifting selling prices, and 45% are doing so at a faster clip than overall inflation. Importantly, inflation rates have increased since our late-September update. The outright deflating sectors dropped by two to 13 since our last update. Encouragingly, only 7 industries are experiencing a downtrend in selling price inflation, or 5 fewer than our most recent report. Impressively, deep cyclicals/commodity-related industries dominate the top ranks, occupying 8 out of the top 10 slots (top panel, Chart 3). A softening greenback and rising global end demand explain the commodity complex's sustained ability to increase prices. In contrast, tech, telecom and consumer discretionary sectors populate the bottom ranks of Table 2. Netting it out, accelerating corporate sector pricing power will continue to bolster top line growth in 2018. Tack on high operating leverage kicking into higher gear at this stage of the cycle and still muted wage inflation and profit margins and EPS growth will remain upbeat. With regard to cyclicals versus defensives, diverging pricing power (Chart 3) and wage growth trends (Chart 4) suggest that cyclicals continue to have the upper hand compared with defensives (Chart 5). Chart 3Deep Cyclicals... Chart 4...Have The Upper Hand... Chart 5...Vs. Defensives This week we update our view on a deep cyclical sector and modestly tweak our intra-sector positioning. Industrials And China We lifted the S&P industrials sector to an above benchmark allocation in early October via boosting the S&P construction machinery & heavy truck sub index to overweight.2 Synchronized global growth, a capex upcycle, firming capital goods final demand, and the U.S. dollar's fall coupled with the commodity price rebound all pointed to a bright outlook for U.S. capital goods producers. Currently, all these forces remain in play and continue to bolster industrials stocks' profit prospects. However, the emerging market (EM)/Chinese economic backdrop deserves closer scrutiny. Why? Because the most cyclical parts of the industrials complex are levered to the EM in general and China in particular. These high operating leverage businesses also drive relative profit and stock performance, signaling that China's economic growth might or ails determine the overall fortunes of U.S. capital goods producers. While Chinese economic data are currently a mixed bag and we take them with a big grain of salt, global high-frequency financial market data are emitting an unambiguously positive signal. First, BCA's FX strategist, Mathieu Savary, brought to our attention that the extremely economic-sensitive Canadian TSX Venture Exchange Index is in a V-shaped recovery.3 Highly speculative basic resources issues dominate this Index and help explain the tight positive correlation with Chinese output (top panel, Chart 6). Second, the ultimate economic-sensitive indicator, Dr. Copper, is also in a violent upswing, heralding that China will be, at least, stable in 2018 (middle panel, Chart 6). Third, high-beta Australian materials stocks have been in an upward trajectory since the early 2016 trough both versus the MSCI All-Country World Index and the broad Australian market, sniffing out improving Chinese-related commodity demand (bottom panel, Chart 6). Similarly, upbeat non-Chinese economic data suggest that China's economic prospects are far from faltering. Australia's close economic ties with China signal that taking a pulse of the Australian economic juggernaut reveals the state of China's economic affairs. Down Under employment growth has been brisk of late, with annual job creation running at a 3.3% clip, a rate last hit in the mid-2000s when China's economy was roaring and the commodity super-cycle was in full swing (second panel, Chart 7). Australian CEO confidence as well as consumer confidence are pushing decade highs, and the manufacturing PMI survey recently shot to a 16 year high (third panel, Chart 7). Chart 6China Is##BR##Alright Chart 7Australian Indicators Confirm:##BR## China Is Stable All of this suggests that China will likely remain stable in 2018, barring a policy mistake a la the August 11, 2015 currency devaluation. The upshot is that industrials EPS and equities have more room to run. On that front, both our Cyclical Macro Indicator and our profit growth model corroborate that the path of least resistance for relative share prices is higher (Chart 8). U.S. dollar debasing is synonymous with capital goods producers' top line growth acceleration, as a large part of total revenues are sourced from abroad. The near 20 percentage point fall in the trade-weighted U.S. dollar since 2015 suggests that more global market share gains are in store for U.S. industrials (Chart 9). Global growth is also joined at the hip with the greenback's depreciation. Synchronized global growth along with our derivative coordinated global capex growth 2018 theme, will likely serve as catalysts for a sustained breakout in relative share prices (Chart 10). Chart 8EPS Model And CMI Flash Green Chart 9Industrials Love A Cheap Greenback Chart 10Levered To Global Growth Adding it up, a stable China is music to the ears of industrials executives. Tack on a depreciating U.S. dollar, rising commodity prices and sustained synchronized global growth and the most cyclical parts of the industrials complex will continue to lead the pack. Bottom Line: Stay overweight the S&P industrials index, but selectivity is warranted. Take Profits In Industrial Machinery We outlined above that the most cyclical parts of the S&P industrials index with high foreign sales content would benefit disproportionately from our stable-to-mildly sanguine EM/China view. While the broad machinery index fits the bill, the industrial machinery sub index less so, and we recommend monetizing gains of 4% since inception and moving to the sidelines. Chart 11 shows the relative performance of the two key drivers of the S&P machinery index: industrial machinery and construction machinery & heavy truck sub-indexes. While these indexes moved hand-in-hand since the mid-1990s, early this decade this tight positive correlation fell apart. One key determinant of the relative move of these indexes is the U.S. dollar. The greenback troughed in 2011 and since then the more "defensive", less globally-exposed S&P industrials machinery index left their brethren in the dust (bottom panel, Chart 11). Now that the U.S. dollar has peaked, the catch up phase in the S&P construction machinery & heavy truck index that is already underway will likely gain momentum (top panel, Chart 11). Beyond the depreciating currency, at the margin, softening S&P industrial machinery operating metrics argue for pruning exposure in this index. Both the Empire and Philly Fed new orders surveys have petered out, suggesting that industry new order growth will likely continue to lose steam (middle panel, Chart 12). In fact, a weak industrial machinery new orders-to-inventories ratio is also warning that sell-side analysts' relative profits forecasts are too optimistic (bottom panel, Chart 12). Chart 11Catch Up Phase Chart 12Waning End-Demand Drilling deeper into industry operating metrics is revealing. While shipments have held their own and moved mostly sideways similar to new orders, inventory accumulation is worrying. Industry inventories have risen by over 30% during the past three years (Chart 13). Simultaneously, industrial machinery backlogs have drifted steadily lower. Given the supply build up, any hiccup in demand, even a minor one, could prove very deflationary and heavily weigh on industry profitability. With regard to valuations, Chart 14 shows that both on a relative trailing price-to-sales and relative forward price-to-earnings ratio basis, the index is trading one standard deviation above the historical mean. The moderating industry demand backdrop suggests that relative valuations are expensive. Chart 13Inventory Liquidation Risk Chart 14Why Pay A Premium? Adding it all up, deteriorating profit prospects warn that investors should refrain from paying a premium valuation for the S&P industrial machinery index. Bottom Line: Book profits of 4% in the S&P industrial machinery index and downgrade to a benchmark allocation. We also recommend redeploying profits from our downgrade in the S&P industrial machinery index to their more cyclical machinery siblings the S&P construction machinery & heavy truck index, thus sustaining the overall overweight exposure in the broad S&P industrials sector. Housekeeping Last week we instituted a risk management tool for our 2018 high-conviction list: setting a stop once a call has cleared the 10% return mark.4 This past week, the S&P construction machinery & heavy truck index hit the trailing stop at the 10% mark, and thus we are booking gains and removing this index from the high-conviction list. While our confidence is not as high as in late-November given the parabolic move in this index and rising chance of a tactical overall equity market pullback, from a cyclical perspective we continue to recommend a core overweight in this industrials sector powerhouse. Anastasios Avgeriou, Vice President U.S. Equity Strategy anastasios@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report, "Too Good To Be True?" dated January 22, 2018, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report, "Earnings Take Center Stage," dated October 2, 2017, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. 3 Please see BCA Foreign Exchange Strategy Weekly Report, "Health Care Or Not, Risks Remain," dated March 24, 2017, available at fes.bcaresearch.com. 4 Please see BCA U.S. Equity Strategy Weekly Report, "Too Good To Be True?" dated January 22, 2018, available at uses.bcaresearch.com. Current Recommendations Current Trades Size And Style Views Favor value over growth. Stay neutral small over large caps (downgrade alert).

Bank Credit Analyst

Highlights U.S. equities 'melted up' in January as tax cuts made the robust growth/low inflation sweet spot even sweeter. Ominously, recent market action is beginning to resemble a classic late cycle blow-off phase. The fundamentals supporting the market will persist through most of the year, before an economic downturn in the U.S. takes hold in 2019. The repatriation of overseas corporate cash will also flatter EPS growth this year via buyback and M&A activity. The S&P 500 could return 14% or more this year. Unfortunately, the consensus now shares our upbeat view for 2018. Valuation is stretched and many indicators suggest that investors have become downright giddy. This month we compare valuation across the major asset classes. U.S. equities are the most overvalued, followed by gold, raw industrials and EM assets. Oil is still close to fair value. Long-term investors should already be scaling back on risk assets. Investors with a 6-12 month horizon should stay overweight equities versus bonds for now, but a risk management approach means that they should not try to squeeze out the last few percentage points of return. In terms of the sequencing of the exit from risk, the most consistent lead/lag relationship relative to previous tops in the equity market is provided by U.S. corporate bonds. For this reason, we are likely to take profits on corporates before equities. EM assets are already at underweight. We still see a window for the U.S. dollar to appreciate, although by only about 5%. A lot of good news is discounted in the euro, peripheral core inflation is slowing and ECB policymakers are getting nervous. Monetary policy remains the main risk to a pro-cyclical investment stance, although not because of the coming change in the makeup of the FOMC. The economy and inflation should justify four Fed rate hikes in 2018 no matter the makeup. The bond bear phase will continue. Feature Chart I-1Investors Are Giddy U.S. equities 'melted up' in January as tax cuts made the robust growth/low inflation sweet spot even sweeter. Ominously, though, recent market action is beginning to resemble the classic late cycle blow-off phase. Such blow-offs can be highly profitable, but also make it more difficult to properly time the market top. Our base case is that the fundamentals supporting the market will persist through most of the year, before an economic downturn in the U.S. takes hold in 2019. Unfortunately, the consensus now shares our upbeat view for 2018 and many indicators suggest that investors have become downright giddy (Chart I-1). These indicators include investor sentiment, our speculation index, and the bull-to-bear ratio. Net S&P earnings revisions and the U.S. economic surprise index are also extremely elevated, while equity and bond implied volatility are near all-time lows. From a contrarian perspective, these observations suggest that a lot of good news is discounted and that the market is vulnerable to even slight disappointments. It is also a bad sign that our Revealed Preference Indicator moved off of its bullish equity signal in January (see Section III for more details). Meanwhile, central banks are beginning to take away the punchbowl as global economic slack dissipates. This is all late-cycle stuff. Equity valuation does not help investors time the peak in markets, but it does tell us something about downside risk and medium-term expected returns. The Shiller P/E ratio has surged above 30 (Chart I-2). Chart I-3 highlights that, historically, average total returns were negligible over the subsequent 10-year period when the Shiller P/E was in the 30-40 range. Granted, the Shiller P/E will likely fall mechanically later this year as the collapse of earnings in 2008 begins to drop out of the 10-year EPS calculation. Nonetheless, even the BCA Composite Valuation indicator, which includes some metrics that account for extremely low bond yields, surpassed +1 standard deviations in January (our threshold for overvaluation; Chart I-2, bottom panel). An overvaluation signal means that investors should be biased to take profits early. Chart I-2BCA Valuation Indicator Surpasses One Sigma Chart I-3Expected Returns Given Starting Point Shiller P/E As we highlighted in our 2018 Outlook Report, long-term investors should already be scaling back on risk assets. We recommend that investors with a 6-12 month horizon should stay overweight equities versus bonds for now, but we need to be vigilant in terms of scouring for signals to take profits. A risk management approach means that investors should not try to get the last few percentage points of return before the peak. U.S. Earnings And Repatriation Before we turn to the timing and sequence of our exit from risk assets, we will first update our thoughts on the earnings cycle. Fourth quarter U.S. earnings season is still in its early innings, but the banking sector has set an upbeat tone. S&P 500 profits are slated to register a 12% growth rate for both Q4/2017 and calendar 2017. Current year EPS growth estimates have been aggressively ratcheted higher (from 12% growth to 16%) in a mere three weeks on the back of Congress' cut to the corporate tax rate.1 U.S. margins fell slightly in the fourth quarter, but remain at a high level on the back of decent corporate pricing power. A pick-up in productivity growth into year-end helped as well. Our short-term profit model remains extremely upbeat (Chart I-4). The positive profit outlook for the first half of the year is broadly based across sectors as well, according to the recently updated EPS forecast models from BCA's U.S. Equity Sector Strategy service.2 The repatriation of overseas corporate cash will also flatter EPS growth this year via buyback and M&A activity. Studies of the 2004 repatriation legislation show that most of the funds "brought home" were paid out to shareholders, mostly in the form of buybacks. A NBER report estimated that for every dollar repatriated, 92 cents was subsequently paid out to shareholders in one form or another. The surge in buybacks occurred in 2005, according to the U.S. Flow of Funds accounts and a proxy using EPS growth less total dollar earnings growth for the S&P 500 (Chart I-5). The contribution to EPS growth from buybacks rose to more than 3 percentage points at the peak in 2005. Chart I-4Profit Growth Still Accelerating Chart I-5U.S. Buybacks To Lift EPS We expect that most of the repatriated funds will again flow through to shareholders, rather than be used to pay down debt or spent on capital goods. Cash has not been a constraint to capital spending in recent years outside of perhaps the small business sector, which has much less to gain from the tax holiday. A revival in animal spirits and capital spending is underway, but this has more to do with the overall tax package and global growth than the ability of U.S. companies to repatriate overseas earnings. Estimates of how much the repatriation could boost EPS vary widely. Most of it will occur in the Tech and Health Care sectors. Buybacks appear to have lifted EPS growth by roughly one percentage point over the past year. We would not be surprised to see this accelerate by 1-2 percentage points, although the timing could be delayed by a year if the 2004 tax holiday provides the correct timeline. This is certainly positive for the equity market, but much of the impact could already be discounted in prices. Organic earnings growth, and the economic and policy outlook will be the main drivers of equity market returns over the next year. We expect some profit margin contraction later this year, but our 5% EPS growth forecast is beginning to look too conservative. This is especially the case because it does not include the corporate tax cuts. The amount by which the tax cuts will boost earnings on an after-tax basis is difficult to estimate, but we are using 5% as a conservative estimate. Adding 2% for buybacks and 2% for dividends, the S&P 500 could provide an attractive 14% total return this year (assuming no multiple expansion). Timing The Exit Chart I-6Timing The Exit (I) That said, we noted in last month's Report and in BCA's 2018 Outlook that this will be a transition year. We expect a recession in the U.S. sometime in 2019 as the Fed lifts rates into restrictive territory. Equities and other risk assets will sniff out the recession about six months in advance, which means that investors should be preparing to take profits sometime during the next 12 months. Last month we discussed some of the indicators we will watch to help us time the exit. The 2/10 Treasury yield curve has been a reliable recession indicator in the past. However, the lead time on the peak in stocks was quite extended at times (Chart I-6). A shift in the 10-year TIPS breakeven rate above 2.4% would be consistent with the Fed's 2% target for the PCE measure of inflation. This would be a signal that the FOMC will have to step-up the pace of rate hikes and aggressively slow economic growth. We expect the Fed to tighten four times in 2018. We are likely to take some money off the table if core inflation is rising, even if it is still below 2%, at the time that the TIPS breakeven reaches 2.4%. We will also be watching seven indicators that we have found to be useful in heralding market tops, which are summarized in our Scorecard Indicator (Chart I-7). At the moment, four out of the seven indicators are positive (Chart I-8): State of the Business Cycle: As early signals that the economy is softening, watch for the ISM new orders minus inventories indicator to slip below zero, or the 3-month growth rate of unemployment claims to rise above zero. Monetary and Financial Conditions: Using interest rates to judge the stance of monetary policy has been complicated by central banks' use of their balance sheet as a policy tool. Thus, it is better to use two of our proprietary indicators: the BCA Monetary Indicator (MI) and the Financial Conditions Indictor. The S&P 500 index has historically rallied strongly when the MI is above its long-term average. Similarly, equities tend to perform well when the FCI is above its 250-day moving average. The MI is sending a negative signal because interest rates have increased and credit growth has slowed. However, the broader FCI remains well in 'bullish' territory. Price Momentum: We simply use the S&P 500 relative to its 200-day moving average to measure momentum. Currently, the index is well above that level, providing a bullish signal for the Scorecard. Sentiment: Our research shows that stock returns have tended to be highest following periods when sentiment is bearish but improving. In contrast, returns have tended to be lowest following periods when sentiment is bullish but deteriorating. The Scorecard includes the BCA Speculation Indicator to capture sentiment, but virtually all measures of sentiment are very high. The next major move has to be down by definition. Thus, sentiment is assigned a negative value in the Scorecard. Value: As discussed above, value is poor based on the Shiller P/E and the BCA Composite Valuation indicator. Valuation may not help with timing, but we include it in our Scorecard because an overvalued signal means investors should err on the side of getting out early. Chart I-7Equity ScoreCard: Watch For A Dip Below 3 Chart I-8Timing The Exit (II) We demonstrated in previous research that a Scorecard reading of three or above was historically associated with positive equity total returns in subsequent months. A drop below three this year would signal the time to de-risk. Table I-1Exit Checklist To our Checklist we add the U.S. Leading Economic index, which has a good track record of calling recessions. However, we will use the LEI excluding the equity market, since we are using it as an indicator for the stock market. It is bullish at the moment. Our Global LEI is also flashing green. Table I-1 provides a summary checklist for trimming equity exposure. At the moment, 2 out of 9 indicators are bearish. Cross Asset Valuation Comparison Clients have asked our view on the appropriate order in which to scale out of risk assets. One way to approach the question is to compare valuation across asset classes. Presumably, the ones that are most overvalued are at greatest risk, and thus profits should be taken the earliest. It is difficult to compare valuation across asset classes. Should one use fitted values from models or simple deviations from moving averages? Over what time period? Since there is no widely accepted approach, we include multiple measures. More than one time period was used in some cases to capture regime changes. Table I-2 provides out 'best guestimate' for nine asset classes. The approaches range from sophisticated methods developed over many years (i.e. our equity valuation indicators), to regression analysis on the fundamentals (oil), to simple deviations from a time trend (real raw industrial commodity prices and gold). Table I-2Valuation Levels For Major Asset Classes We averaged the valuation readings in cases where there are multiple estimates for a single asset class. The results are shown in Chart I-9. Chart I-9Valuation Levels For Major Asset Classes U.S. equities stand out as the most expensive by far, at 1.8 standard deviations above fair value. Gold, raw industrials and EM equities are next at one standard deviation overvalued. EM sovereign bond spreads come next at 0.7, followed closely by U.S. Treasurys (real yield levels) and investment-grade corporate (IG) bonds (expressed as a spread). High-yield (HY) is only about 0.3 sigma expensive, based on default-adjusted spreads over the Treasury curve. That said, both IG and HY are quite expensive in absolute terms based on the fact that government bonds are expensive. Oil is sitting very close to fair value, despite the rapid price run up over the past couple of months. This makes oil exposure doubly attractive at the moment because the fundamentals point to higher prices at a time when the underlying asset is not expensive. Sequencing Around Past S&P 500 Peaks Historical analysis around equity market peaks provides an alternative approach to the sequencing question. Table I-3 presents the number of days that various asset classes peaked before or after the past major five tops in the S&P 500. A negative number indicates that the asset class peaked before U.S. equities, and a positive number means that it peaked after. Table I-3Asset Class Leads & Lags Vs. Peak In S&P 500 Unfortunately, there is no consistent pattern observed for EM equities, raw industrials, U.S. cyclical stocks, Tech stocks, or small-cap versus large-cap relative returns. Sometimes they peaked before the S&P 500, and sometime after. The EM sovereign bond excess return index peaked about 130 days in advance of the 1998 and 2007 U.S. equity market tops, although we only have three episodes to analyse due to data limitations. Oil is a mixed bag. A peak in the price of gold led the equity market in four out of five episodes, but the lead time is long and variable. The most consistent lead/lag relationship is given by the U.S. corporate bond market. Both investment- and speculative-grade excess returns relative to government bonds peaked in advance of U.S. stocks in four of the five episodes. High-yield excess returns provided the most lead time, peaking on average 154 days in advance. Excess returns to high-yield were a better signal than total returns. This leading relationship is one reason why we plan to trim exposure to corporate bonds within our bond portfolio in advance of scaling back on equities. But the 'return of vol' that we expect to occur later this year will take a toll on carry trades more generally. We are already underweight EM equities and bonds. This EM recommendation has not gone in our favor, but it would make little sense to upgrade them now given our positive views on volatility and the dollar. An unwinding of carry trades will also hit the high-yielding currencies outside of the EM space, such as the Kiwi and Aussie dollar. Base metal prices will be hit particularly hard if the 2019 U.S. recession spills over to the EM economies as we expect. We may downgrade base metals from neutral to underweight around the time that we downgrade equities, but much depends on the evolution of the Chinese economy in the coming months. Oil is a different story. OPEC 2.0 is likely to cut back on supply in the face of an economic downturn, helping to keep prices elevated. We therefore may not trim energy exposure this year. As for equity sectors, our recommended portfolio is still overweight cyclicals for now. Our synchronized global capex boom, rising bond yield, and firm oil price themes keep us overweight the Industrials, Energy and Financial sectors. Utilities and Homebuilders are underweight. Tech is part of the cyclical sector, but poor valuation keeps us underweight. That said, our sector specialists are already beginning a gradual shift away from cyclicals toward defensives for risk management purposes. This transition will continue in the coming months as we de-risk. We are also shifting small caps to neutral on earnings disappointments and elevated debt levels. The Dollar Pain Trade Market shifts since our last publication have largely gone in our favor; stocks have surged, corporate bonds spreads have tightened, oil prices have spiked, bonds have sold off and cyclical stocks have outperformed defensives. One area that has gone against us is the U.S. dollar. Relative interest rate expectations have moved in favor of the dollar as we expected at both the short- and long-ends of the curve. Nonetheless, the dollar has not tracked its historical relationship versus both the yen and euro. The Greenback did not even get a short-term boost from the passage of the tax plan and holiday on overseas earnings. Perhaps this is because the lion's share of "overseas" earnings are already held in U.S. dollars. Reportedly, a large fraction is even held in U.S. banks on U.S. territory. Currency conversion is thus not a major bullish factor for the U.S. dollar. The recent bout of dollar weakness began around the time of the release of the ECB Minutes in January which were interpreted as hawkish because they appeared to be preparing markets for changes in monetary policy. The European debt crisis and economic recession were the reasons for the ECB's asset purchases and negative interest rate policy. Neither of these conditions are in place now. The ECB is meeting as we go to press, and we expect some small adjustments in the Statement that remove references to the need for "crisis" level accommodations. Subsequent steps will be to prepare markets for a complete end to QE, perhaps in September, and then for rates hikes likely in 2019. The key point is that European monetary policy has moved beyond 'peak stimulus' and the normalization process will continue. Perhaps this is partly to blame for euro strength although, as mentioned above, interest rate differentials have moved in favor of the dollar. Does this mean that the dollar has peaked and has entered a cyclical bear phase that will persist over the next 6-12 months? The answer is 'no', although we are less bullish than in the past. We believe there is still a window for the dollar to appreciate against the euro and in broader trade-weighted terms by about 5%. First, a lot of euro-bullish news has been discounted (Chart I-10). Positive economic surprises heavily outstripped that in the U.S. last year, but that phase is now over. The euro appears expensive based on interest rate differentials, and euro sentiment is close to a bullish extreme. This all suggests that market positioning has become a negative factor for the currency. Chart I-10Euro: A Lot Of Bullish News Is Discounted Second, the chorus of complaints against the euro's strength is growing among European central bankers, including Ewald Nowotny, the rather hawkish Austrian central banker. Policymakers' concerns may partly reflect the fact that peripheral inflation excluding food and energy has already weakened to 0.6% from a high of 1.3% in April last year (Chart I-10, fourth panel). Third, U.S. consumer price and wage inflation have yet to pick up meaningfully. The dollar should receive a lift if core U.S. inflation clearly moves toward the Fed's 2% target, as we expect. The FOMC would suddenly appear to have fallen behind the curve and U.S. rate expectations would ratchet higher. Chart I-10, bottom panel, highlights that the euro will weaken if U.S. core inflation rises versus that in the Eurozone. The implication is that the Euro's appreciation has progressed too far and is due for a pullback. As for the yen, the currency surged in January when the Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced a reduction in long-dated JGB purchases. This simply acknowledged what has already occurred. It was always going to be impossible to target both the quantity of bond purchases and the level of 10-year yield simultaneously. Keeping yields near the target required less purchases than they thought. The market interpreted the BoJ's move as a possible prelude to lifting the 10-year yield target. It is perhaps not surprising that the market took the news this way. The economy is performing extremely well; our model that incorporates high-frequency economic data suggests that real GDP growth will move above 3% in the coming quarters. The Japanese economy is benefiting from the end of a fiscal drag and from a rebound in EM growth. Nonetheless, following January's BoJ policy meeting, Kuroda poured cold water on speculation that the BoJ may soon end or adjust the YCC. Recent speeches by BoJ officials reinforce the view that the MPC wants to see an overshoot of actual inflation that will lower real interest rates and thereby reinforce the strong economic activity that is driving higher inflation. Only then will officials be convinced that their job is done. Given that inflation excluding food and energy only stands at 0.3%, the BoJ is still a long way from the overshoot it desires. On the positive side, Japan's large current account surplus and yen undervaluation provide underlying support for the currency. Balancing the offsetting positive and negative forces, our foreign exchange strategists have shifted to neutral on the yen. The Euro remains underweight while the dollar is overweight. Similar to our dollar view, we still see a window for U.S. Treasurys to underperform the global hedged fixed-income benchmark as world bond yields shift higher this year. European government bonds will also sell off, but should outperform Treasurys. JGBs will provide the best refuge for bondholders during the global bond bear phase, since the BoJ will prevent a rise in yields inside of the 10-year maturity. Our global bond strategists upgraded U.K. gilts to overweight in January. Momentum in the U.K. economy is slowing, as a weaker consumer, slower housing activity, and softer capital spending are offsetting a pickup in exports. With the inflationary impulse from the 2016 plunge in the Pound now fading, and with Brexit uncertainty weighing on business confidence, the Bank of England will struggle to raise rates in 2018. FOMC Transition Monetary policy remains the main risk to a pro-cyclical investment stance, although not because of the coming change in the makeup of the FOMC. An abrupt shift in policy is unlikely. There was some support at the December 2017 FOMC meeting to study the use of nominal GDP or price level targeting as a policy framework, but this has been an ongoing debate that will likely continue for years to come. The Fed will remain committed to its current monetary policy framework once Powell takes over. Table I-4 provides a summary of who will be on the FOMC next year, including their policy bias. Chart I-11 compares the recent FOMC makeup with the coming Powell FOMC (voting members only). The hawk/dove ratio will not change much under Powell, unless Trump stacks the vacant spots with hawks. Table I-4Composition Of The FOMC Chart I-11Composition Of Voting FOMC Members 2017 Vs. 2018 In any event, history shows that the FOMC strives to avoid major shifts in policy around changeovers in the Fed Chair. In previous transitions, the previous path for rates was maintained by an average of 13 months. Moreover, Powell has shown that he is not one to rock the boat during his time on the FOMC. It will be the evolution of the economy and inflation, not the composition of the FOMC, that will have the biggest impact on markets at the end of the day. Recent speeches reveal that policymakers across the hawk/dove spectrum are moving modesty toward the hawkish side because growth has accelerated at a time when unemployment is already considered to be below full-employment by many policymakers. The melt-up in equity indexes in January did little to calm worries about financial excesses either. The Fed is struggling to understand the strength of the structural factors that could be holding down inflation. This month's Special Report, beginning on page 21, focusses on the impact of robot automation. While advances on this front are impressive, we conclude that it is difficult to find evidence that robots are more deflationary than previous technological breakthroughs. Thus, increased robot usage should not prevent inflation from rising as the labor market continues to tighten. The macro backdrop will likely justify the FOMC hiking at least as fast as the dots currently forecast. The risks are skewed to the upside. The median Fed dot calls for an unemployment rate of 3.9% by end-2018, only marginally lower than today's rate of 4.1%. This is inconsistent with real GDP growth well in excess of its supply-side potential. The unemployment rate is more likely to reach a 49-year low of 3.5% by the end of this year. As highlighted in last month's Report, a key risk to the bull market in risk assets is the end of the 'low vol/low rate' world. The selloff in the bond market in January may mark the start of this process. Conclusions We covered a lot of ground in this month's Overview of the markets, so we will keep the conclusions brief and focused on the risks. Our key point is that the fundamentals remain positive for risk assets, but that a lot of good news is discounted and it appears that we have entered a classic blow-off phase. This will be a transition year to a recession in the U.S. in 2019. Given that valuation for most risk assets is quite stretched, and given that the monetary taps are starting to close, investors must plan for the exit and keep an eye on our timing checklist. The main risk to our pro-cyclical portfolio is a rise in U.S. inflation and the Fed's response, which we believe will end the sweet spot for risk assets. Apart from this, our geopolitical strategists point to several other items that could upset the applecart this year:3 1. Trade China has cooperated with the U.S. in trying to tame North Korea. Nonetheless, President Trump is committed to an "America First" trade policy and he may need to show some muscle against China ahead of the midterm elections in November in order to rally his base. It is politically embarrassing to the Administration that China racked up its largest trade surplus ever with the U.S. in Trump's first year in office. A key question is whether the President goes after China via a series of administrative rulings - such as the recently announced tariffs on solar panels and white goods - or whether he applies an across-the-board tariff and/or fine. The latter would have larger negative macroeconomic implications. 2. Iran On January 12, President Trump threatened not to waive sanctions against Iran the next time they come due (May 12), unless some new demands are met. Pressure from the U.S. President comes at a delicate time for Iran. Domestic unrest has been ongoing since December 28. Although protests have largely fizzled out, they have reopened the rift between the clerical regime, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Iranian hardliners, who control part of the armed forces, could lash out in the Persian Gulf, either by threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz or by boarding foreign vessels in international waters. The domestic political calculus in both Iran and the U.S. make further Tehran-Washington tensions likely. For the time being, however, we expect only a minor geopolitical risk premium to seep into the energy markets, supporting our bullish House View on oil prices. 3. China Last month's Special Report highlighted that significant structural reforms are on the way in China, now that President Xi has amassed significant political support for his reform agenda. The reforms should be growth-positive in the long term, but could be a net negative for growth in the near term depending on how deftly the authorities handle the monetary and fiscal policy dials. The risk is that the authorities make a policy mistake by staying too tight, as occurred in 2015. We are monitoring a number of indicators that should warn if a policy mistake is unfolding. On this front, January brought some worrying economic data. The latest figures for both nominal imports and money growth slowed. Given that M2 and M3 are components of BCA's Li Keqiang Leading Indicator, and that nominal imports directly impact China's contribution to global growth, this raises the question of whether December's economic data suggest that China is slowing at a more aggressive pace than we expect. For now, our answer is no. First, China's trade numbers are highly volatile; nominal import growth remains elevated after smoothing the data. Second, China's export growth remains buoyant, consistent with a solid December PMI reading. The bottom line is that we are sticking with our view that China will experience a benign deceleration in terms of its impact on DM risk assets, but we will continue to monitor the situation closely. Mark McClellan Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst January 25, 2018 Next Report: February 22, 2018 1 According to Thomson Reuters/IBES. 2 Please see U.S. Equity Sector Strategy Special Report "White Paper: Introducing Our U.S. Equity Sector Earnings Models," dated January 16, 2018, available at uses.bcaresearch.com 3 For more information, please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Weekly Report "Upside Risks In U.S., Downside Risks In China," dated January 17, 2018, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. Also see "Watching Five Risks," dated January 24, 2018. II. The Impact Of Robots On Inflation Media reports warn of a "Robot Apocalypse" that is already laying waste to jobs and depressing wages on a broad scale. Technological advance in the past has not prevented improving living standards or led to ever rising joblessness over the decades, but pessimists argue that recent advances are different. The issue is important for financial markets. If structural factors such as automation are holding back inflation by more than in previous decades, then the Fed will have to proceed very slowly in raising rates. We see no compelling evidence that the displacement effect of emerging technologies is any stronger than in the past. Robot usage has had a modest positive impact on overall productivity. Despite this contribution, overall productivity growth has been dismal over the past decade. If automation is increasing 'exponentially' and displacing workers on a broad scale as some claim, one would expect to see accelerating productivity growth, robust capital spending and more violent shifts in occupational shares. Exactly the opposite has occurred. Periods of strong growth in automation have historically been associated with robust, not lackluster, wage gains, contrary to the consensus view. The Fed was successful in meeting the 2% inflation target on average from 2000 to 2007, when the impact of the IT revolution on productivity (and costs) was stronger than that of robot automation today. This and other evidence suggest that it is difficult to make the case that robots will make it tougher for central banks to reach their inflation goals than did previous technological breakthroughs. For investors, this means that we cannot rely on automation to keep inflation depressed irrespective of how tight labor markets become. Recent breakthroughs in technology are awe-inspiring and unsettling. These advances are viewed with great trepidation by many because of the potential to replace humans in the production process. Hype over robots is particularly shrill. Media reports warn of a "Robot Apocalypse" that is already laying waste to jobs and depressing wages on a broad scale. In the first in our series of Special Reports focusing on the structural factors that might be preventing central banks from reaching their inflation targets, we demonstrated that the impact of Amazon is overstated in the press. We estimated that E-commerce is depressing inflation in the U.S. by a mere 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points. This Special Report tackles the impact of automation. We are optimistic that robot technology and artificial intelligence will significantly boost future productivity, and thus reduce costs. But, is there any evidence at the macro level that robot usage has been more deflationary than technological breakthroughs in the past and is, thus, a major driver of the low inflation rates we observe today across the major countries? The question matters, especially for the outlook for central bank policy and the bond market. If structural factors are indeed holding back inflation by more than in previous decades, then the Fed will have to proceed very slowly in raising rates. However, if low inflation simply reflects long lags between wages and the tightening labor market, then inflation may suddenly lurch to life as it has at the end of past cycles. The bond market is not priced for that scenario. Are Robots Different? A Special Report from BCA's Technology Sector Strategy service suggested that the "robot revolution" could be as transformative as previous General Purpose Technologies (GPT), including the steam engine, electricity and the microchip.1 GPTs are technologies that radically alter the economy's production process and make a major contribution to living standards over time. The term "robot" can have different meanings. The most basic definition is "a device that automatically performs complicated and often repetitive tasks," and this encompasses a broad range of machines: From the Jacquard Loom, which was invented over 200 years ago, on to Numerically Controlled (NC) mills and lathes, pick and place machines used in the manufacture of electronics, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), and even homicidal robots from the future such as the Terminator. Our Technology Sector report made the case that there is nothing particularly sinister about robots. They are just another chapter in a long history of automation. Nor is the displacement of workers unprecedented. The industrial revolution was about replacing human craft labor with capital (machines), which did high-volume work with better quality and productivity. This freed humans for work which had not yet been automated, along with designing, producing and maintaining the machinery. Agriculture offers a good example. This sector involved over 50% of the U.S. labor force until the late 1800s. Steam and then internal combustion-powered tractors, which can be viewed as "robotic horses," contributed to a massive rise in output-per-man hour. The number of hours worked to produce a bushel of wheat fell by almost 98% from the mid-1800s to 1955. This put a lot of farm hands out of work, but these laborers were absorbed over time in other growing areas of the economy. It is the same story for all other historical technological breakthroughs. Change is stressful for those directly affected, but rising productivity ultimately lifts average living standards. Robots will be no different. As we discuss below, however, the increasing use of robots and AI may have a deeper and longer-lasting impact on inequality. Strong Tailwinds Chart II-1Robots Are Getting Cheaper Factory robots have improved immensely due to cheaper and more capable control and vision systems. As these systems evolve, the abilities of robots to move around their environment while avoiding obstacles will improve, as will their ability to perform increasingly complex tasks. Most importantly, robots are already able to do more than just routine tasks, thus enabling them to replace or aid humans in higher-skilled processes. Robot prices are also falling fast, especially after quality-adjusting the data (Chart II-1). Units are becoming easier to install, program and operate. These trends will help to reduce the barriers-to-entry for the large, untapped, market of small and medium sized enterprises. Robots also offer the ability to do low-volume "customized" production and still keep unit costs low. In the future, self-learning robots will be able to optimize their own performance by analyzing the production of other robots around the world. Robot usage is growing quickly according to data collected by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) that covers 23 countries. Industrial robot sales worldwide increased to almost 300,000 units in 2016, up 16% from the year before (Chart II-2). The stock of industrial robots globally has grown at an annual average pace of 10% since 2010, reaching slightly more than 1.8 million units in 2016.2 Robot usage is far from evenly distributed across industries. The automotive industry is the major consumer of industrial robots, holding 45% of the total stock in 2016 (Chart II-3). The computer & electronics industry is a distant second at 17%. Metals, chemicals and electrical/electronic appliances comprise the bulk of the remaining stock. Chart II-2Global Robot Usage Chart II-3Global Robot Usage By Industry (2016) As far as countries go, Japan has traditionally been the largest market for robots in the world. However, sales have been in a long-term downtrend and the stock of robots has recently been surpassed by China, which has ramped up robot purchases in recent years (Chart II-4). Robot density, which is the stock of robots per 10 thousand employed in manufacturing, makes it easier to compare robot usage across countries (Chart II-5, panel 2). By this measure, China is not a heavy user of robots compared to other countries. South Korea stands at the top, well above the second-place finishers (Germany and Japan). Large automobile sectors in these three countries explain their high relative robot densities. Chart II-4Stock Of Robots By Country (I) Chart II-5Stock Of Robots By Country (II) (2016) While the growth rate of robot usage is impressive, it is from a very low base (outside of the automotive industry). The average number of robots per 10,000 employees is only 74 for the 23 countries in the IFR database. Robot use is tiny compared to total man hours worked. Chart II-6U.S. Investment In Robots In the U.S., spending on robots is only about 5% of total business spending on equipment and software (Chart II-6). To put this into perspective, U.S. spending on information, communication and technology (ICT) equipment represented 35-40% of total capital equipment spending during the tech boom in the 1990s and early 2000s.3 The bottom line is that there is a lot of hype in the press, but robots are not yet widely used across countries or industries. It will be many years before business spending on robots approaches the scale of the 1990s/2000s IT boom. A Deflationary Impact? As noted above, we view robotics as another chapter in a long history of technological advancements. Pessimists suggest that the latest advances are different because they are inherently more threatening to the overall job market and wage share of total income. If the pessimists are right, what are the theoretical channels though which this would have a greater disinflationary effect relative to previous GPT technologies? Faster Productivity Gains: Enhanced productivity drives down unit labor costs, which may be passed along to other industries (as cheaper inputs) and to the end consumer. More Human Displacement: The jobs created in other areas may be insufficient to replace the jobs displaced by robots, leading to lower aggregate income and spending. The loss of income for labor will simply go to the owners of capital, but the point is that the labor share of income might decline. Deflationary pressures could build as aggregate demand falls short of supply. Even in industries that are slow to automate, just the threat of being replaced by robots may curtail wage demands. Inequality: Some have argued that rising inequality is partly because the spoils of new technologies over the past 20 years have largely gone to the owners of capital. This shift may have undermined aggregate demand because upper income households tend to have a high saving rate, thereby depressing overall aggregate demand and inflationary pressures. The human displacement effect, described above, would exacerbate the inequality effect by transferring income from labor to the owners of capital. 1. Productivity It is difficult to see the benefits of robots on productivity at the economy-wide level. Productivity growth has been abysmal across the major developed countries since the Great Recession, but the productivity slowdown was evident long before Lehman collapsed (Chart II-7). The productivity slowdown continued even as automation using robots accelerated after 2010. Chart II-7Productivity Collapsed Despite Automation Some analysts argue that lackluster productivity is simply a statistical mirage because of the difficulties in measuring output in today's economy. We will not get into the details of the mismeasurement debate here. We encourage interested clients to read a Special Report by the BCA Global Investment Strategy service entitled "Weak Productivity Growth: Don't Blame The Statisticians." 4 Our colleague Peter Berezin makes the case that the unmeasured utility accruing from free internet services is large, but so was the unmeasured utility from antibiotics, radio, indoor plumbing and air conditioning. He argues that the real reason that productivity growth has slowed is that educational attainment has decelerated and businesses have plucked many of the low-hanging fruit made possible by the IT revolution. Cyclical factors stemming from the Great Recession and financial crisis are also to blame, as capital spending has been slow to recover in most of the advanced economies. Some other factors that help to explain the decline in aggregate productivity are provided in Appendix II-1. Nonetheless, the poor aggregate productivity performance does not mean that there are no benefits to using robots. The benefits are evident at the industrial level, where measurement issues are presumably less vexing for statisticians (i.e., it is easier to measure the output of the auto industry, for example, than for the economy as a whole). Chart II-8 plots the level of robot density in 2016 with average annual productivity growth since 2004 for 10 U.S. manufacturing industries (robot density is presented in deciles). A loose positive relationship is apparent. Chart II-8U.S.: Productivity Vs. Robot Density Academic studies estimate that robots have contributed importantly to economy-wide productivity growth. The Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) estimated that labor productivity growth rises by 0.07 to 0.08 percentage points for every 1% rise in the rate of robot density.5 This implies that robots accounted for roughly 10% of the productivity growth experienced since the early 1990s in the major economies. Another study of 14 industries across 17 countries by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) found that robots boosted annual productivity growth by 0.36 percentage points over the 1993-2007 period.6 This is impressive because, if this estimate holds true for the U.S., robots' contribution to the 2½% average annual U.S. total productivity growth over the period was 14%. To put the importance of robotics into historical context, its contribution to productivity so far is roughly on par with that of the steam engine (Chart II-9). It falls well short of the 0.6 percentage point annual productivity contribution from the IT revolution. The implication is that, while the overall productivity performance has been dismal since 2007, it would have been even worse in the absence of robots. What does this mean for inflation? According to the "cost push" model of the inflation process, an increase in productivity of 0.36% that is not accompanied by associated wage gains would reduce unit labor costs (ULC) by the same amount. This should trim inflation if the cost savings are passed on to the end consumer, although by less than 0.36% because robots can only depress variable costs, not fixed costs. There indeed appears to be a slight negative relationship between robot density and unit labor costs at the industrial level in the U.S., although the relationship is loose at best (Chart II-10). Chart II-9GPT Contribution To Productivity Chart II-10U.S.: Unit Labor Costs Vs. Robot Density In theory, divergences in productivity across industries should only generate shifts in relative prices, and "cost push" inflation dynamics should only operate in the short term. Most economists believe that inflation is a purely monetary phenomenon in the long run, which means that central banks should be able to offset positive productivity shocks by lowering interest rates enough that aggregate demand keeps up with supply. Indeed, the Fed was successful in meeting the 2% inflation target on average from 2000 to 2007, when the impact of the IT revolution on productivity (and costs) was stronger than that of robot automation today. Also, note that inflation is currently low across the major advanced economies, irrespective of the level of robot intensity (Chart II-11). From this perspective, it is hard to see that robots should take much of the credit for today's low inflation backdrop. Chart II-11Inflation Vs. Robot Density 2. Human Displacement A key question is whether robots and humans are perfect substitutes. If new technologies introduced in the past were perfect substitutes, then it would have led to massive underemployment and all of the income in the economy would eventually have migrated to the owners of capital. The fact that average real household incomes have risen over time, and that there has been no secular upward trend in unemployment rates over the centuries, means that new technologies were at least partly complementary with labor (i.e., the jobs lost as a direct result of productivity gains were more than replaced in other areas of the economy over time). Rather than replacing workers, in many cases tech made humans more productive in their jobs. Rising productivity lifted income and thereby led to the creation of new jobs in other areas. The capital that workers bring to the production process - the skills, know-how and special talents - became more valuable as interaction with technology increased. Like today, there were concerns in the 1950s and 1960s that computerization would displace many types of jobs and lead to widespread idleness and falling household income. With hindsight, there was little to worry about. Some argue that this time is different. Futurists frequently assert that the pace of innovation is not just accelerating, it is accelerating 'exponentially'. Robots can now, or will soon be able to, replace humans in tasks that require cognitive skills. This means that they will be far less complementary to humans than in the past. The displacement effect could thus be much larger, especially given the impressive advances in artificial intelligence. However, Box II-1 discusses why the threat to workers posed by AI is also heavily overblown in the media. The CEP multi-country study cited above did not find a large displacement effect; robot usage did not affect the overall number of hours worked in the 23 countries studied (although it found distributional effects - see below). In other words, rather than suppressing overall labor input, robot usage has led to more output, higher productivity, more jobs and stronger wage and income growth. A report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)7 takes a broader look at automation, using productivity growth and capital spending as proxies. Automation is what occurs as the implementation of new technologies is incorporated along with new capital equipment or software to replace human labor in the workplace. If automation is increasing 'exponentially' and displacing workers on a broad scale, one would expect to see accelerating productivity growth, robust capital spending, and more violent shifts in occupational shares. Exactly the opposite has occurred. Indeed, the report demonstrates that occupational employment shifts were far slower in the 2000-2015 period than in any decade in the 1900s (Chart II-12). Box II-1 The Threat From AI Is Overblown Media coverage of AI/Deep Learning has established a consensus view that we believe is well off the mark. A recent Special Report from BCA's Technology Sector Strategy service dispels the myths surrounding AI.8 We believe the consensus, in conjunction with warnings from a variety of sources, is leading to predictions, policy discussions, and even career choices based on a flawed premise. It is worth noting that the most vocal proponents of AI as a threat to jobs and even humanity are not AI experts. At the root of this consensus is the false view that emerging AI technology is anything like true intelligence. Modern AI is not remotely comparable in function to a biological brain. Scientists have a limited understanding of how brains work, and it is unlikely that a poorly understood system can be modeled on a computer. The misconception of intelligence is amplified by headlines claiming an AI "taught itself" a particular task. No AI has ever "taught itself" anything: All AI results have come about after careful programming by often PhD-level experts, who then supplied the system with vast amounts of high quality data to train it. Often these systems have been iterated a number of times and we only hear of successes, not the failures. The need for careful preparation of the AI system and the requirement for high quality data limits the applicability of AI to specific classes of problems where the application justifies the investment in development and where sufficient high-quality data exists. There may be numerous such applications but doubtless many more where AI would not be suitable. Similarly, an AI system is highly adapted to a single problem, or type of problem, and becomes less useful when its application set is expanded. In other words, unlike a human whose abilities improve as they learn more things, an AI's performance on a particular task declines as it does more things. There is a popular misconception that increased computing power will somehow lead to ever improving AI. It is the algorithm which determines the outcome, not the computer performance: Increased computing power leads to faster results, not different results. Advanced computers might lead to more advanced algorithms, but it is pointless to speculate where that may lead: A spreadsheet from 2001 may work faster today but it still gives the same answer. In any event, it is worth noting that a tool ceases to be a tool when it starts having an opinion: there is little reason to develop a machine capable of cognition even if that were possible. Chart II-12U.S. Job Rotation Has Slowed The EPI report also notes that these indicators of automation increased rapidly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a period that saw solid wage growth for American workers. These indicators weakened in the two periods of stagnant wage growth: from 1973 to 1995 and from 2002 to the present. Thus, there is no historical correlation between increases in automation and wage stagnation. Rather than automation, the report argues that it was China's entry into the global trading system that was largely responsible for the hollowing out of the U.S. manufacturing sector. We have also made this argument in previous research. The fact that the major advanced economies are all at, or close to, full employment supports the view that automation has not been an overwhelming headwind for job creation. Chart II-13 demonstrates that there has been no relationship between the change in robot density and the loss of manufacturing jobs since 1993. Japan is an interesting case study because it is on the leading edge of the problems associated with an aging population. Interestingly, despite a worsening labor shortage, robot density among Japanese firms is falling. Moreover, the Japanese data show that the industries that have a high robot usage tend to be more, not less, generous with wages than the robot laggard industries. Please see Appendix II-2 for more details. Chart II-13Global Manufacturing Jobs Vs. Robot Density The bottom line is that it does not appear that labor displacement related to automation has been responsible in any meaningful way for the lackluster average real income growth in the advanced economies since 2007. 3. Inequality That said, there is evidence suggesting that robots are having important distributional effects. The CEP study found that robot use has reduced hours for low-skilled and (to a lesser extent) middle-skilled workers relative to the highly skilled. This finding makes sense conceptually. Technological change can exacerbate inequality by either increasing the relative demand for skilled over unskilled workers (so-called "skill-biased" technological change), or by inducing companies to substitute machinery and other forms of physical capital for workers (so-called "capital-biased" technological change). The former affects the distribution of labor income, while the latter affects the share of income in GDP that labor receives. A Special Report appearing in this publication in 2014 focused on the relationship between technology and inequality.9 The report highlighted that much of the recent technological change has been skill-biased, which heavily favors workers with the talent and education to perform cognitively-demanding tasks, even as it reduces demand for workers with only rudimentary skills. Moreover, technological innovations and globalization increasingly allow the most talented individuals to market their skills to a much larger audience, thus bidding up their wages. The evidence suggests that faster productivity growth leads to higher average real wages and improved living standards, at least over reasonably long horizons. Nonetheless, technological change can, and in the future almost certainly will, increase income inequality. The poor will gain, but not as much as the rich. The fact that higher-income households tend to maintain a higher savings rate than low-income households means that the shift in the distribution of income toward the higher-income households will continue to modestly weigh on aggregate demand. Can the distribution effect be large enough to have a meaningful depressing impact on inflation? We believe that it has played some role in the lackluster recovery since the Great Recession, with the result that an extended period of underemployment has delivered a persistent deflationary impulse in the major developed economies. However, as discussed above, stimulative monetary policy has managed to overcome the impact of inequality and other headwinds on aggregate demand, and has returned the major countries roughly to full employment. Indeed, this year will be the first since 2007 that the G20 economies as a group will be operating slightly above a full employment level. Inflation should respond to excess demand conditions, irrespective of any ongoing demand headwind stemming from inequality. Conclusions Technological change has led to rising living standards over the decades. It did not lead to widespread joblessness and did not prevent central banks from meeting their inflation targets over time. The pessimists argue that this time is different because robots/AI have a much larger displacement effect. Perhaps it will be 20 years before we will know the answer. But our main point is that we have found no evidence that recent advances in robotics and AI, while very impressive, will be any different in their macro impact. There is little evidence that the modern economy is less capable in replacing the jobs lost to automation, although the nature of new technologies may be affecting the distribution of income more than in the past. Real incomes for the middle- and lower-income classes have been stagnant for some time, but this is partly due to productivity growth that is too low, not too high. Moreover, it is not at all clear that positive productivity shocks are disinflationary beyond the near term. The link between robot usage and unit labor costs over the past couple of decades is loose at best at the industry level, and is non-existent when looking across the major countries. The Fed was able to roughly meet its 2% inflation target in the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s, despite IT's impressive contribution to productivity growth during that period. For investors, this means that we cannot rely on automation to keep inflation depressed irrespective of how tight labor markets become. The global output gap will shift into positive territory this year for the first time since the Great Recession. Any resulting rise in inflation will come as a shock since the bond market has discounted continued low inflation for as far as the eye can see. We expect bond yields and implied volatility to rise this year, which may undermine risk assets in the second half. Mark McClellan Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst Brian Piccioni Vice President Technology Sector Strategy Appendix II-1 Why Is Productivity So Low? A recent study by the OECD10 reveals that, while frontier firms are charging ahead, there is a widening gap between these firms and the laggards. The study analyzed firm-level data on labor productivity and total factor productivity for 24 countries. "Frontier" firms are defined to be those with productivity in the top 5%. These firms are 3-4 times as productive as the remaining 95%. The authors argue that the underlying cause of this yawning gap is that the diffusion rate of new technologies from the frontier firms to the laggards has slowed within industries. This could be due to rising barriers to entry, which has reduced contestability in markets. Curtailing the creative-destruction process means that there is less pressure to innovate. Barriers to entry may have increased because "...the importance of tacit knowledge as a source of competitive advantage for frontier firms may have risen if increasingly complex technologies were to increase the amount and sophistication of complementary investments required for technological adoption." 11 The bottom line is that aggregate productivity is low because the robust productivity gains for the tech-savvy frontier companies are offset by the long tail of firms that have been slow to adopt the latest technology. Indeed, business spending has been especially weak in this expansion. Chart II-14 highlights that the slowdown in U.S. productivity growth has mirrored that of the capital stock. Chart II-14U.S. Capex Shortfall Partly To Blame For Poor Productivity Appendix II-2 Japan - The Leading Edge Japan is an interesting case study because it is on the leading edge of the problems associated with an aging population. The popular press is full of stories of how robots are taking over. If the stories are to be believed, robots are the answer to the country's shrinking workforce. Robots now serve as helpers for the elderly, priests for weddings and funerals, concierges for hotels and even sexual partners (don't ask). Prime Minister Abe's government has launched a 5-year push to deepen the use of intelligent machines in manufacturing, supply chains, construction and health care. Indeed, Japan was the leader in robotics use for decades. Nonetheless, despite all the hype, Japan's stock of industrial robots has actually been eroding since the late 1990s (Chart II-4). Numerous surveys show that firms plan to use robots more in the future because of the difficulty in hiring humans. And there is huge potential: 90% of Japanese firms are small- and medium-sized (SME) and most are not currently using robots. Yet, there has been no wave of robot purchases as of 2016. One problem is the cost; most sophisticated robots are simply too expensive for SMEs to consider. This suggests that one cannot blame robots for Japan's lack of wage growth. The labor shortage has become so acute that there are examples of companies that have turned down sales due to insufficient manpower. Possible reasons why these companies do not offer higher wages to entice workers are beyond the scope of this report. But the fact that the stock of robots has been in decline since the late 1990s does not support the view that Japanese firms are using automation on a broad scale to avoid handing out pay hikes. Indeed, Chart II-15 highlights that wage deflation has been the greatest in industries that use almost no robots. Highly automated industries, such as Transportation Equipment and Electronics, have been among the most generous. This supports the view that the productivity afforded by increased robot usage encourages firms to pay their workers more. Looking ahead, it seems implausible that robots can replace all the retiring Japanese workers in the years to come. The workforce will shrink at an annual average pace of 0.33% between 2020 and 2030, according to the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training. Productivity growth would have to rise by the same amount to fully offset the dwindling number of workers. But that would require a surge in robot density of 4.1, assuming that each rise in robot density of one adds 0.08% to the level of productivity (Chart II-16). The level of robot sales would have to jump by a whopping 2½ times in the first year and continue to rise at the same pace each year thereafter to make this happen. Of course, the productivity afforded by new robots may accelerate in the coming years, but the point is that robot usage would likely have to rise astronomically to offset the impact of the shrinking population. Chart II-15Japan: Earnings Vs. Robot Density Chart II-16Japan: Where Is The Flood Of Robots? The implication is that, as long as the Japanese economy continues to grow above roughly 1%, the labor market will continue to tighten and wage rates will eventually begin to rise. 1 Please see Technology Sector Strategy Special Report "The Coming Robotics Revolution," dated May 16, 2017, available at tech.bcaresearch.com 2 Note that this includes only robots used in manufacturing industry, and thus excludes robots used in the service sector and households. However, robot usage in services is quite limited and those used in households do not add to GDP. 3 Note that ICT investment and capital stock data includes robots. 4 Please see BCA Global Investment Strategy Special Report "Weak Productivity Growth: Don't Blame The Statisticians," dated March 25, 2016, available at gis.bcaresearch.com 5 Centre for Economic and Business Research (January 2017): "The Impact of Automation." A Report for Redwood. In this report, robot density is defined to be the number of robots per million hours worked. 6 Graetz, G., and Michaels, G. (2015): "Robots At Work." CEP Discussion Paper No 1335. 7 Mishel, L., and Bivens, J. (2017): "The Zombie Robot Argument Lurches On," Economic Policy Institute. 8 Please see BCA Technology Sector Strategy Special Report "Bad Information - Why Misreporting Deep Learning Advances Is A Problem," dated January 9, 2018, available at tech.bcaresearch.com 9 Please see The Bank Credit Analyst, "Rage Against The Machines: Is Technology Exacerbating Inequality?" dated June 2014, available at bca.bcaresearch.com 10 OECD Productivity Working Papers, No. 05 (2016): "The Best Versus the Rest: The Global Productivity Slowdown, Divergence Across Firms and the Role of Public Policy." 11 Please refer to page 27. III. Indicators And Reference Charts As we highlight in the Overview section, the earnings backdrop for the U.S. equity market remains very upbeat, as highlighted by the rise in the net earnings revisions and net earnings surprises indexes. Bottom-up analysts will likely continue to boost after-tax earnings estimates for the year as they adjust to the U.S. tax cut news. Our main concern is that a lot of good news is now discounted. Our Technical Indicator remains bullish, but our composite valuation indicator surpassed one sigma in January, which is our threshold of overvaluation. From these levels of overvaluation, the medium-term outlook for equity total returns is negligible. Our speculation index is at all-time highs and implied volatility is low, underscoring that investors are extremely bullish. From a contrary perspective, this is a warning sign for the equity market. Our Monetary Indicator has also moved further into 'bearish' territory for equities, although overall financial conditions remain positive for growth. It is also disconcerting that our Revealed Preference Indicator (RPI) shifted to a 'sell' signal for stocks, following five straight months on a 'buy' signal. This occurred because investors may be buying based on speculation rather than on a firm belief in the staying power of the underlying fundamentals. For now, though, our Willingness-to-Pay indicator for the U.S. rose sharply in January, highlighting that investor equity inflows are very strong and are favoring U.S. equities relative to Japan and the Eurozone. This is perhaps not surprising given the U.S. tax cuts just passed by Congress. The RPI indicators track flows, and thus provide information on what investors are actually doing, as opposed to sentiment indexes that track how investors are feeling. Our U.S. bond technical indicator shows that Treasurys are close to oversold territory, suggesting that we may be in store for a consolidation period following January's surge in yields. Treasurys are slightly cheap on our valuation metric, although not by enough to justify closing short duration positions. The U.S. dollar is oversold and due for a bounce. EQUITIES: Chart III-1U.S. Equity Indicators Chart III-2Willingness To Pay For Risk Chart III-3U.S. Equity Sentiment Indicators Chart III-4Revealed Preference Indicator Chart III-5U.S. Stock Market Valuation Chart III-6U.S. Earnings Chart III-7Global Stock Market And Earnings: ##br##Relative Performance Chart III-8Global Stock Market And Earnings: ##br##Relative Performance FIXED INCOME: Chart III-9U.S. Treasurys And Valuations Chart III-10U.S. Treasury Indicators Chart III-11Selected U.S. Bond Yields Chart III-1210-Year Treasury Yield ComponentsChart III-13U.S. Corporate Bonds And Health Monitor Chart III-14Global Bonds: Developed Markets Chart III-15Global Bonds: Emerging Markets CURRENCIES: Chart III-16U.S. Dollar And PPP Chart III-17U.S. Dollar And Indicator Chart III-18U.S. Dollar Fundamentals Chart III-19Japanese Yen Technicals Chart III-20Euro Technicals Chart III-21Euro/Yen Technicals Chart III-22Euro/Pound Technicals COMMODITIES: Chart III-23Broad Commodity Indicators Chart III-24Commodity Prices Chart III-25Commodity Prices Chart III-26Commodity Sentiment Chart III-27Speculative Positioning ECONOMY: Chart III-28U.S. And Global Macro Backdrop Chart III-29U.S. Macro Snapshot Chart III-30U.S. Growth Outlook Chart III-31U.S. Cyclical Spending Chart III-32U.S. Labor Market Chart III-33U.S. Consumption Chart III-34U.S. Housing Chart III-35U.S. Debt And Deleveraging Chart III-36U.S. Financial Conditions Chart III-37Global Economic Snapshot: Europe Chart III-38Global Economic Snapshot: China Mark McClellan Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst

Highlights A thorough audit of our trade book highlights that our country and sector allocation recommendations have been quite profitable for investors. Of the 12 active trades in our book, 11 have generated a positive return, including one with a 32% annualized rate of return. A review of the original basis and subsequent performance of our trades suggests that investors should close 6 out of 12 of our active positions, predominantly related to resource & construction and domestic stock market themes. We will be looking for opportunities to add new trades to our book over the coming weeks and months that have broad, "big-picture" relevance. Watch this space. Feature In this week's report we conduct a thorough audit of our trade book, by revisiting the original basis and subsequent performance of all 12 of our active trades. While these trades have been initiated at different points over the past five years, they can be broadly grouped into five different themes: Core Equity Allocation & General Pro-Risk Trades (4 Trades) Reform-Oriented Trades (2 Trades) Resource & Construction Plays (2 Trades) Domestic Stock Market Trades (2 Trades) Trades Linked To Hong Kong (2 Trades) Overall, our trade book performance has been excellent. Of the 12 active trades in our book, 11 have generated a positive return, including one with a 32% annualized rate of return (since December 2015). As a result of our trade book review, we recommend that investors close six trades and maintain six over the coming 6-12 months. The closed trades predominantly fall into the resource & construction and domestic stock market categories, although we also recommend closing our long China H-share / short industrial commodity trade as well as our long Hong Kong REITs / short Hong Kong broad market trade. We present our rationale for retaining or closing each trade below. Over the coming weeks and months we will be looking for opportunities to add new trades to our book. Stay tuned. Core Equity Allocation & General Pro-Risk Trades We have four open core equity allocation and pro-risk trades: Overweight MSCI China Investable stocks versus the emerging markets benchmark, initiated on May 2, 2012 Long China H-shares / short industrial commodities, initiated on March 16, 2016 Short MSCI Taiwan / Long MSCI China Investable, initiated on February 2, 2017 and Long China onshore corporate bonds, initiated on June 22, 2017 We recommend that investors stick with three of these trades, but close the long China H-shares / short industrial commodities position for the following reasons: Chart 1Be Overweight China Vs EM In This Environment Overweight MSCI China Investable Stocks Versus The EM Benchmark (Maintain) This trade represents one of the most important equity allocation calls for Chinese stocks, and is one of the ways that BCA expresses a view on the Chinese economy in our House View Matrix.1 While it hasn't always been the case, we noted in a recent Special Report that Chinese stocks have become a high-beta equity market versus both the global aggregate and the emerging market benchmark, even when excluding the technology sector.2 China's high-beta nature, the fact that EM equities remain in an uptrend (Chart 1), and our view that China's ongoing slowdown is likely to be benign and controlled all suggest that investors should continue to overweight Chinese stocks vs their emerging market peers. Long China H-Shares / Short Industrial Commodities (Close) We initiated this trade in March 2016, one month after Chinese stock prices bottomed following the significant economic slowdown in 2015. At that time it was not clear to global investors that a mini-cycle upswing in the Chinese economy had begun, and this pair trade was a way of taking a limited pro-risk bet. Given our view of a benign, controlled economic slowdown in China, this hedged trade is no longer needed, especially given the uncertain impact of ongoing supply side constraints in China on global commodity prices. As such, we recommend that investors close the trade, locking in an annualized return of 15.7%. Short MSCI Taiwan / Long MSCI China Investable (Maintain) Chart 2If The TWD Declines Materially, ##br##Upgrade Taiwan (From Short) We initiated our short MSCI Taiwan / long MSCI China investable trade last February, when the risk of protectionist action from the Trump administration loomed large. While there have been no negative trade actions levied against Taiwan this year, macro factors, particularly the strength of the currency, continue to argue for an underweight stance within the greater China bourses (China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). We reviewed the basis of this trade in a report last month,3 and recommended that investors stick with the call despite significantly oversold conditions (Chart 2). A material easing in pressure on Taiwan's trade-weighted exchange rate appears to be the most likely catalyst to close the trade and to upgrade Taiwan within a portfolio of greater China equities. Long China Onshore Corporate Bonds (Maintain) Chinese corporate bond yields have risen materially since late-2016, largely in response to expectations of tighter monetary policy. These expectations have been validated, with 3-month interbank rates having risen over 200bps since late-2016. We argued last summer that the phase of maximum liquidity tightening was likely over, and that quality spreads and government bond yields would probably drop over the coming three to six months. While this clearly did not occur (yields and spreads rose), the total return from this trade has remained in the black owing to the significant yield advantage of these bonds versus similarly-rated bonds in the developed world. Chart 3 highlights that Chinese 5-year corporate bond spreads are also considerably less correlated with equity prices than their investment-grade peers in the U.S. This underscores that the rise in yields and spreads over the past year has reflected expectations of tighter monetary policy, not rising default risk. Our sense is that barring a significant improvement in China's growth momentum, significant further monetary policy tightening is improbable, meaning that corporate bond yields are not likely to rise much further. As a final point, as of today's report we are changing the benchmark for this trade from a BCA calculation based on a basket of 5-year AAA and AA-rated corporate bonds to the ChinaBond Corporate Credit Bond Total Return Index. Chart 3Chinese Corporate Spreads Aren't A Risk ##br##Barometer Like In The U.S. Reform-Oriented Trades We have two open trades related to China's rebooted reform initiative, both of which were initiated on November 16, 2017: Long China investable consumer staples / short consumer discretionary stocks and Long China investable environmental and social governance (ESG) leaders / short investable broad market These trades were recently opened, and we continue to recommend that investors maintain both positions: Long China Investable Consumer Staples / Short Consumer Discretionary Stocks (Maintain) The basis for the first trade stems from the current limitations of China's investable consumer discretionary index as a clear-cut play on retail-oriented consumer spending. We argued in our November 16 Weekly Report that Chinese investable consumer staples would be a better play on Chinese consumer spending owing to the material weight of the automobiles & components industry group in the discretionary sector, which may fare poorly over the coming year due to the environmental mandate of President Xi's proposed reforms. We argued in the report that this trade would likely be driven by alpha rather than beta, and indeed Chart 4 illustrates that staples continue to rise relative to discretionary against a backdrop of a rising broad market. Long China Investable ESG leaders / Short Investable Broad Market (Maintain) In the same report we recommended that investors overweight the China investable ESG leaders index, based on the goal of favoring firms that are best positioned to deliver "sustainable" growth in an era of heightened environmental reforms. The index overweights firms with the highest MSCI ESG ratings in each sector (using a proprietary MSCI ranking scheme), and maintains similar sector weights as the investable benchmark, which limits the beta risk of the trade. Chart 5 highlights that the trade is progressing in line with our expectations, suggesting that investors stick with the position over the coming 6-12 months. Chart 4Staples Vs Discretionary Isn't A Low Beta Trade Chart 5Likely To Continue To Outperform Resource & Construction Plays We have two open trades related to the resource sector: Long China investable oil & gas stocks / short global oil & gas stocks, initiated on April 26, 2014 and Long China investable construction materials sector / short investable broad market, initiated on December 9, 2015 We recommend that investors close both of these positions, based on the following rationale: Chart 6Similar Earnings Profile, ##br##But Weaker Dividend Payouts Long China Investable Oil & Gas Stocks / Short Global Oil & Gas Stocks (Close) This trade was initiated based on the view that the valuation gap between Chinese and global oil & gas companies is unjustifiable given that the earnings off both sectors are globally driven. Indeed, Chart 6 shows that the trailing EPS profiles of both sectors in US$ terms have been broadly similar over the past few years, and yet China's oil & gas sector trades at a 40% price-to-book discount relative to its global peers. However, panel 2 of Chart 6 highlights that this discount may represent investor concerns about earnings quality and/or state-owned corporate governance. The chart shows that while the earnings ROE for Chinese oil & gas companies is higher than that of the global average, the dividend ROE (dividends per share as a percent of shareholders equity) is considerably lower. While China's oil & gas dividend ROE has recently been rising, the gap remains wide relative to global oil & gas companies, suggesting that there is no significant re-rating catalyst that is likely to emerge over the coming 6-12 months. Close for an annualized return of 1.4%. Long China Investable Construction Material Stocks / Short China Investable Broad Market (Close) The relative performance of Chinese investable construction material stocks has been positive over the past two years, with the trade having generated an 8.1% annualized return since initiation. There are two factors contributing to our view that it is time for investors to book profits on this trade. The first is that China's investable construction materials are dominated by cement companies, which may suffer in relative terms from China's rebooted reform initiative this year.4 The second is that the relative performance of construction materials stocks is closely correlated with, and led by, the growth in total real estate investment (Chart 7). Residential investment makes up a significant component of total real estate investment, and Chart 8 highlights that a significant gap between floor space sold and completed has narrowed the inventory to sales ratio over the past three years. But the ratio remains somewhat elevated relative to its history which, when coupled with the ongoing growth slowdown in China and the deceleration in total real estate investment growth, implies a poor risk/reward ratio over the coming 6-12 months. Chart 7Cement Producers Trade Off Of Real Estate Investment Chart 8No Clear Construction Boom Is Imminent Domestic Stock Market Trades We have two open trades related to China's domestic stock market: Long China domestic utility sector / short domestic broad market, initiated on January 22, 2014 and Long China domestic food & beverage sector / short domestic broad market, initiated on December 9, 2015 Similar to our resource & construction plays, we recommend that investors close both of our recommended domestic stock market trades: Long China Domestic Utility Sector / Short Domestic Broad Market (Close) We initiated this trade in early-2014, following a comprehensive reform plan released in late-2013 by the Chinese government. The plan called for allowing market forces to play a decisive role in allocating resources, which we argued would grant utilities more pricing power, reduce their earnings volatility associated with policy risks, and lead to a structural positive re-rating. Chart 9 illustrates that this trade gained significant ground in 2014 and early-2015, even prior to the significant melt-up in domestic stock prices that began in Q2 2015. However, the trade has underperformed significantly since the middle of last year, which has been driven by a sharp deterioration in ROE. This decline in ROE appears to have been cost-driven, as coal is an important feedstock for Chinese utility companies and has risen substantially in price over the past two years. While domestic utilities are now significantly oversold in relative terms, we recommend that investors close this trade because the original reform-oriented basis has shifted significantly. The priorities that emanated from October's Party Congress were decidedly environmental in nature, meaning that coal prices may very well remain elevated over the coming 6-12 months (due to restricted supply). This means that a recovery in ROE would rest on the need to raise utility prices, which is a low-visibility event that will be difficult to predict. Close for an annualized return of 3%. Long China Domestic Food & Beverage Sector / Short Domestic Broad Market (Close) We initiated this trade in December 2015, based on this sector's superior corporate fundamentals and undemanding valuation levels. We argued that the anti-corruption campaign since late-2012 was likely the cause of prior underperformance, given that the group is dominated by a few high-end alcohol producers. The market overacted to the high-profile crackdown, and ultimately the fundamentals of the sector did not deteriorate materially. Our view has panned out spectacularly, with the trade having earned a 32% annualized return since inception5 (Chart 10 panel 1). While the group's ROE remains significantly above that of the domestic benchmark, valuation measures suggest that investors have more than priced this in (Chart 10 panel 2). The trade has mostly played out and we would not like to overstay our welcome. In addition, panel 3 illustrates that technical conditions are extremely overbought, suggesting that investors are being presented with an excellent opportunity to exit the position. Chart 9Sidelined By A Major Hit To ROE Chart 10Time To Book Profits Trades Linked To Hong Kong We have two open trades related to Hong Kong: Long U.S. / short Hong Kong 10-Year government bonds, initiated on January 15, 2014 and Short Hong Kong property investors / long Hong Kong broad market, initiated on January 21, 2015 We recommend that investors stick with the first and close the second, based on the following perspectives: Long U.S. / Short Hong Kong 10-Year Government Bonds (Maintain) Hong Kong has an open capital account and an exchange rate pegged to the U.S. dollar, meaning that its monetary policy is directly tied to that of the U.S. Yet, Hong Kong's 10-year government bond yield is non-trivially below that of the U.S., which argues for a short stance versus similar maturity U.S. Treasurys. While it is true that the Hong Kong - U.S. 10-year yield spread does vary and can widen over a 6-12 month horizon, Chart 11 highlights that the relative total return profile of the trade (in unhedged terms) trends higher over time due to the carry advantage. Short Hong Kong REITs / Long Hong Kong Broad Market (Close) There are cross-currents facing the outlook for Hong Kong REITs vs the broad market, arguing for a neutral rather than an underweight stance. Close this trade for an annualized return of 3.6%. While the relative performance of global REITs is typically negatively correlated with bond yields, Chart 12 shows that the relationship with Hong Kong property yields has been positive and lagging (i.e. falling yields lead declining relative performance, and vice versa). Under this regime, a rise in U.S. government bond yields, as we expect, would suggest an improvement in the relative performance of Hong Kong REITs. Chart 11A Straightforward Carry Pick Up Trade Chart 12Rising Bond Yields Implies ##br##Positive HK REIT Performance Chart 13 highlights that periods of positive yield / REIT performance correlation have tended to occur when Hong Kong property prices are rising significantly relative to income, as they have been for the past several years. One interpretation of this dynamic is that when house prices are overvalued and potentially vulnerable, REIT investors react positively to an improvement in economic fundamentals (which tends to push yields up due to higher interest rate expectations). The risk of an eventual collapse of Hong Kong property prices is clear, but we cannot identify an obvious catalyst for this to occur over the coming 6-12 months. Importantly, the fact that property prices have continued to rise during a period of tighter mainland capital controls suggests that only a significant economic shock will be enough to derail the uptrend in prices, circumstances that we do not expect over the coming year. Finally, Chart 14 highlights that Hong Kong REITs are deeply discounted relative to book value when compared against the broad market. This suggests that at least some of the risks associated with the property market have already been priced in by investors. Chart 13Yields & REITs Positively Correlated ##br##When House Prices Are Overvalued Chart 14Hong Kong REITs Are Cheap Jonathan LaBerge, CFA, Vice President Special Reports jonathanl@bcaresearch.com Lin Xiang, Research Analyst linx@bcaresearch.com 1 https://www.bcaresearch.com/trades 2 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "China: No Longer A Low-Beta Market", dated January 11, 2018, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 3 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report "Taiwan: Awaiting A Re-Rating Catalyst", dated December 14, 2017, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 4 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "Messages From The Market, Post-Party Congress", dated November 16, 2017, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 5 Please note that the total return from this trade had been erroneously reported for some time due a data processing error on BCA's part. The return since inception now properly sources the China CSI SWS Food & Beverage index from CHOICE. We sincerely regret the error and any confusion it may have caused. Cyclical Investment Stance Equity Sector Recommendations