After having surged in the second half of 2021 and early 2022, the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker peaked in mid-2022 and has since been on a general downtrend. The latest reading of 5.0% in January is a continuation of…
According to the latest MBA weekly survey, mortgage applications increased 3.7% in the week ending February 2. The contents of the report were mixed. A 12.3% jump in the refinance index drove the increase while mortgage…
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…
Euro area small-cap stocks are attractively valued compared to their large-cap counterparts. They have underperformed by 20% since April 2022, but small caps’ earnings have kept pace with those of large-cap firms. Hence,…
Although our base case remains that a continuation of the disinflation process will allow policymakers to pivot to rate cuts this year, we continue to monitor risks to this outlook. On this front, some key indicators have…
As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia kept the policy rate unchanged at 4.35% on Tuesday. The updated economic forecasts show a downward revision to the growth outlook for this year versus the previous round of…
German factory orders delivered a positive surprise on Tuesday, unexpectedly increasing on both a monthly and annual basis. The 8.9% m/m increase in December came in well above consensus estimates of a 0.2% m/m decline. This…
Our Portfolio Allocation Summary for February 2024.
BCA Research’s European Investment Strategy service upgrades Swedish government bonds to neutral from underweight within European fixed-income portfolios. The Riksbank kept its policy rate steady at 4% last week.…
Treasury yields continued to push higher on Monday, bringing the total increase over the past two trading days to 29bps. The move comes on the back of strong economic data releases indicating that conditions in the US are…