Fixed Income

This insight presents an outlook on USD-Denominated Emerging Market Bonds.

In this Strategy Insight, we assess the best and worst opportunities for inflation-linked bonds within the major developed markets. We see a case for underweighting inflation protection in the euro area, while overweighting Japanese inflation-linked bonds with the Bank of Japan moving away from yield curve control at a time of relatively high Japanese inflation.

While the housing downturn will be fairly mild in the US, it will be more severe abroad. Continue to favor bonds of countries whose housing fundamentals will limit rate hikes.

We measure the effects of inflation and growth cycles on the returns of various assets using the four-quadrant approach, where we classify periods into the following buckets: Slowing inflation/slowing growth (slowdown), rising growth/slowing inflation (goldilocks), rising growth/rising inflation (overheating), and slowing growth/rising inflation (stagflation). Our analysis provides insight into the coming macro environment. As growth and inflation begin to decline, the best choices for asset allocators will be fixed income, precious metals, CTAs and timberland.

The crucial question for 2023 is: will the US and UK Beveridge Curves shift back inwards to their pre-pandemic versions, ushering in a soft landing? Or, will we slide down the new post-pandemic Beveridge Curves into recession? Plus: we reveal the most important chart for Europe and the most important chart for China in early 2023.

The Fed will respond to December’s CPI report by downshifting to a 25 bps hike pace next month. We anticipate two more 25 bps hikes before the Fed goes on hold.

This week we present our Portfolio Allocation Summary for January 2023.