Commodities & Energy Sector
Investors have embraced renewed Fed hawkishness as a vote of economic confidence and confirmation of analysts' rosy earnings forecasts, but the bounce in financials looks unsustainable, outside of REITs. Hang on to gold shares.
Both hawks and doves at the Federal Reserve, including Chair Yellen, have stepped up efforts to condition financial markets for a rate hike as early as June.
For the month of May, the model underperformed both global equities and the S&P 500. For the month of June, the model is further paring back its risk exposure.
Against a backdrop of continuing supply destruction, particularly in the U.S., and a pick-up in crude demand, markets will remain in balance this quarter and go into a deficit in 2016H2.
A combination of physical rebalancing in the oil markets and geopolitical risk have pushed oil prices above $50/bbl. We therefore close our recommendation - made jointly with BCA's Commodity & Energy Strategy team - to long a December 2016 WTI $50/$55 call spread for a 106.3% gain.
The latest conclusions from the sector-based (right) way to pick stock markets. Plus some important conclusions for credit markets.
This month's <i>Special Report</i> reviews the literature on equity market timing, and identifies the key indicators that historically have had the best track record. We then aggregate the indicators into an overall scorecard that should prove to be valuable for investors in these volatile times.
Risks to global growth remain to the downside. Selling pressure in cyclical markets and assets will escalate. EM currencies will make new lows versus the U.S. dollar, the euro and yen. Take profits on our long JPY/short KRW and long JPY/short SGD trades. Short KRW versus an equal-weighted basket of the U.S. dollar, yen and euro. Continue underweighting Peruvian equities.
Australia's equities and currency are driven largely by industrial commodities prices, Canada's by the oil price. Given our more positive view on oil, we prefer Canadian assets, though both markets face risk from stretched property prices and household debt.
Gold will remain well bid over the short term. The surge in demand that pushed prices up by 20% ytd (Chart of the Week) will continue to dominate supply growth.