Financials

Highlights Portfolio Strategy Expensive valuations leave no room to maneuver in the S&P real estate index that has to contend with a higher interest rate backdrop and deteriorating cash flow growth fundamentals. Trim to underweight. In contrast,…

Our analysis is often focused on China, commodities prices and Asia's business cycle. The key points of these discussions are applicable to the majority of EM countries and their financial markets. Yet, there are some countries that are not exposed to China…

Markets have been uneasy recently; last month saw the Fed raise rates, combined with language indicating a steeper path for interest rate moves in the coming two years. As of writing, markets are currently assigning a nearly 75% probability of at least two…

Overweight (High Conviction) America's largest banks are set to kickstart earnings season at the end of this week/beginning of next week and, with a 25% improvement in EPS forecast by sell side analysts this year, expectations are high. We think…

Feature Japan's economic experience in the post bubble era is often described as a fate to avoid at all costs. We would like to turn this common notion on its head. Rather than something to avoid, Japan's post bubble experience is a fate that other major…

Highlights Key Portfolio Highlights Our portfolio positioning remains firmly behind cyclicals over defensives, driven principally by our key 2018 investment themes: synchronized global capex growth (Chart 1A) and higher interest rates on the back of a…

Highlights Several economic and financial market indicators point to a budding downtrend in Chinese capital spending and its industrial sector. The recent underperformance of global mining, chemicals and machinery/industrials corroborate that capital…

Highlights The global economic mini-cycle is set to weaken while the euro is set to grind higher. Upgrade Telecoms to overweight. Also overweight Healthcare and Airlines. Underweight Banks, Basic Materials and Energy. Overweight France, Ireland, U.K.,…

The S&P banks index has been the best performer on our 2018 high-conviction call list and begs the question whether or not there is any "gas left in the tank". In this week's Special Report, we give our top 10 reasons why we still like banks,…

We boosted the financials sector heavyweight S&P banks index to overweight on May 1, 2017,1 and in late-November we also included it in our 2018 high-conviction overweight list. Since last May, relative performance has added considerable alpha to our…