Economic Growth

The Fed is unlikely to derail the housing recovery.
In this report we detail our structurally bullish U.S. housing view and how to profit from it.

We are sending you the Q2 <i>Global Investment Strategy Outlook</i>, which discusses the ten predictions we expect to drive global financial markets throughout the rest of the year.

Fed dovishness is weakening the U.S. dollar. As the ECB and BoJ move to the sidelines and the Fed remains reluctant to hike rates, the euro and Japanese yen should continue to recover versus the greenback.

Several tail risks appear less ominous compared to last month. Nonetheless, the earnings outlook has not improved and the FOMC will turn more hawkish ahead of the June meeting. Stay defensively positioned.

Risk assets are stuck in a range driven by the Fed feedback loop. But the current rally may continue for another quarter or two.

There are a number of warning signs that the global and EM equity bounce is unsustainable. The latest episode of housing recovery in China will prove temporary due to still-large imbalances. Overweight Indian stocks: the credit cycle in India is less vulnerable compared to other EMs. However, the outlook for Indian equities in absolute terms is not bullish.

In this <i>Special Report</i>, we present a detailed discussion on the outlook for Australian credit markets. Our conclusion is that investors should begin increasing exposure to Australian spread product.

There is little evidence suggesting that declining productivity growth in recent years has resulted from measurement error. Businesses have plucked many of the low-hanging fruits made possible by the IT revolution, while cyclical factors stemming from the Great Recession have also weighed on productivity. Low productivity growth tends to be deflationary in the short run, but inflationary longer-term. For now, this is good news for bonds, but is likely to become bad news by decade-end.

Headline and aggregate-economy statistics such as GDP and income are no longer representative statistics for the living standards of the vast majority of the population. This <i>Special Report</i> discusses the implications for politics, economics and investment.

If the EM rally is sustained, the Fed will once again become resolute in its commitment to hiking interest rates. This in turn will spur another relapse in EM risk assets. Chinese policymakers are attempting to juggle contradictory objectives without a clear and realistic plan of action to resolve existing problems.