Mega Themes
Democrats remain favored for reelection in 2024, which implies gridlock and policy status quo in 2025. That is not negative for stocks in the near term. However, economic, political, and geopolitical risks will escalate from here, causing volatility.
Over the next six months, the deterioration in non-US growth will occur earlier and be more pronounced than in the US. This expectation reinforces our confidence to bet on the strength of the US dollar. As usual, the flip side of the US dollar strength will be weakness in EM risk assets.
Energy markets are balanced in the short run, which keeps our Brent price forecasts at $95/bbl and $105/bbl in 2024 and 2025. Structurally, we see an upward bias to inflation, as geoeconomic fragmentation fundamentally alters supply chains; higher costs follow. Military access to oil will be prioritized. Renewables are the future, but war will be fought with hydrocarbons. We remain long the COMT, XOP and PPA ETFs.
Our Valentine’s Day report is about two love stories: the infatuation with US tech and China’s infatuation with housing. We describe how these love stories will end, and why Europe could be the winner.
We created a sector selection scorecard based on performance of sectors under various macroeconomic regimes while taking into consideration revisions to expected earnings growth and valuations in a historical context. Our total sector selection scorecard suggests overweighting defensives such as Utilities, and Consumer Staples, and underweighting cyclicals such as Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, and Financials. Considering this analysis, we have adjusted our sector positioning accordingly.
China will continue to suffer from a “triple crisis”. Though there could be a tactical bounce, cyclically we still recommend underweighting Chinese equities.
Chinese A-shares will probably begin forming a volatile bottom. The basis is that authorities will likely throw the kitchen sink at the onshore market in an attempt to stabilize share prices. The same is not true for offshore listed stocks. Hong Kong-traded Chinese share prices will likely continue to fall. Beijing is less concerned with offshore stocks as their holders are primarily foreign investors.
The disinflation to date has been benign because it has come almost entirely from improving supply. But the supply-side tailwind has exhausted, so the last mile of the journey to 2 percent inflation will be the hardest, especially in the US and the UK. We discuss the investment implications. Plus, we highlight an interesting sector pair-trade.
Indonesia will not revert to dictatorship. Yet the guardrails against authoritarianism are also constraining the actions of the next government in tackling near term domestic and regional challenges. For long-term positioning, use potential selloff from a “dictatorship scare” to build position as structural outlook for Indonesia is positive due to the China-West divorce and the global energy transition.
The soft landing and rate cuts narrative is being priced out, and the S&P 500 is overvalued and getting overbought. The Magnificent Seven are about to get a new moniker on the back of performance dispersion. However, without the cohort, S&P 500 earnings would have been even deeper in the red.