Underweight (High Conviction) Telecom services stocks had a good day yesterday on the back of reasonably healthy earnings from VZ; fewer monthly subscribers were lost than had been expected and, while that is not necessarily a bullish…

Highlights Key Portfolio Highlights Our portfolio positioning remains firmly behind cyclicals over defensives, driven principally by our key 2018 investment themes: synchronized global capex growth (Chart 1A) and higher interest…

Highlights The global economic mini-cycle is set to weaken while the euro is set to grind higher. Upgrade Telecoms to overweight. Also overweight Healthcare and Airlines. Underweight Banks, Basic Materials and Energy. Overweight…

Highlights Portfolio Strategy Synchronized global capex growth and higher interest rates are two key themes that will continue to dominate this year. Three high-conviction calls are levered to the former theme and two to the latter. A…

Highlights Portfolio Strategy Relentless selling in utilities stocks is overdone and we are compelled to lift exposure to neutral. Operating metrics have turned the corner for the better, but a still challenging macro backdrop suggests…

Special Report

Equities have melted up in recent weeks, celebrating the tax bill passage, synchronized upswing in global economic data, still quiescent inflation and near vanishing tail risk. On July 10th when we penned the "SPX 3,000?" report…

Neutral The news that talks between Sprint and T-Mobile over a possible merger had ceased has hurt the S&P telecom services index this week (top panel). The potential tie-up would have created a much stronger competitor to the AT…

Neutral Rumors of a merger between T-Mobile and Sprint have been widespread for the last number of months; those rumors look much closer to reality with reports that the companies are performing due diligence. Regulatory hurdles seem…

Neutral When we upgraded the unloved telecom services index to neutral last month, we noted that a point would eventually be reached when selling prices would no longer contract. Yesterday's personal consumption expenditure data…

Investors have shunned telecom services stocks vehemently year-to-date (YTD) on the back of an abysmal profit showing. Telecom services stocks are down 9%, while the S&P is up 10% YTD. In fact, in Q1 telecom services stocks were the…