Technology
DeepSeek's AI breakthrough will likely enhance China’s productivity gains. But does it justify a re-valuation in Chinese tech stocks? Sustaining the Chinese tech rally will require corporate profits to overcome the pressures of China’s deflationary cycle. Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s innovations may fuel greater competition, intensifying price wars and putting further strain on Chinese tech companies’ profit margins.
Jonathan provides an update on Canada following strong performance from Canadian stocks last year. On a tactical basis, underweight Canada versus global ex-US on the expectation of tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico. Following a sell off, or if a trade war is avoided, investors should place Canadian stocks on upgrade watch with the goal of moving to a modest overweight versus global ex-US.
GAI is a double-edged sword for S&S. Companies without GAI applications find that GAI crowds out their offering from IT budgets. In contrast, companies with GAI offering find that high inference costs make new products less lucrative than the cloud-subscription model that has propelled their margins to all-time highs. The effect of DeepSeek on the industry is generally positive, as it will help it lower costs of GAI-based software products.
In this first presentation of 2025, we start with an overview of the 2025 outlook webcast polls, and a brief post-mortem of the 2024 market performance. Then, we shift gears and examine what is behind the recent surge in bond yields and its implications for equities. We also review market technicals and positioning and conclude with a list of trades to prepare our portfolio for continued moves in yields.
To kick start our new research agenda at Equity Analyzer, we welcome you to our weekly screener report. Each week we will deliver three screeners highlighting stocks exposed to various macro and investment views and themes, that have either been suggested by various BCA strategies, such as the Global Investment Strategy, or are based on research by the Equity Analyzer team. In our first installment, we take a look at US Tech stocks, equity sentiment, and quality "bubble" stocks.
