Fixed Income

Meager credit growth and shrinking real wages will keep Thai inflation very low in the coming months. The currency will get support from an improving current account surplus. Fixed-income investors should upgrade Thailand from neutral to overweight within EM domestic bond portfolios.

In this Special Report, we take an in-depth look at the outlook for monetary policy in Australia and discuss the impact of an elevated policy rate on the economy. We recommend an underweight country allocation to Australian government bonds and look for opportunities to go long the Australian dollar.

Illegal immigration into the US has skyrocketed to record levels. Correctly accounting for this, US real consumption growth on a per head basis is already fragile. Meanwhile, the real bond yield is only now approaching the pain point that typically triggers a recession. Ahead of the upcoming US jobs report, we point out what it would take for the Joshi rule real-time US recession indicator to breach its event horizon. And how to position in stocks and bonds, both tactically and cyclically. Plus: potential turning points in Biotech and Genome, ADBE, and Taiwan versus China.

Our Portfolio Allocation Summary for December 2023.

The recent uptick in European economic data will not last beyond the next six months. How will European corporate credit perform in this context?

We enter 2024 as we were across the last four months of 2023, tactically equal weight across the board until the S&P 500 rally is complete and we gain a better entry point for underweighting equities and overweighting fixed income.

Treasury yields will sketch out a range between now and Q1 2024, with the upside determined by inflation and the downside determined by labor markets.