Yield Curve
Hopes of a soft landing for the US economy will intensify over the coming months, allowing equities to rally. However, even if an equilibrium of high employment and low inflation is reached, it will be difficult to keep the economy there. Investors should remain tactically bullish on stocks but look to turn defensive in the second half of 2023.
In this Strategy Insight, we assess the best and worst opportunities for inflation-linked bonds within the major developed markets. We see a case for underweighting inflation protection in the euro area, while overweighting Japanese inflation-linked bonds with the Bank of Japan moving away from yield curve control at a time of relatively high Japanese inflation.
This week we present our Portfolio Allocation Summary for January 2023.
In this, our final report of a tumultuous year, we summarize our policy outlook for the “Big 4” central banks – the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England (BoE) and the BoJ – and the associated bond market implications for 2023.
In this report, we discuss our most important investment themes for global fixed income markets in 2023, and present our main investment recommendations based on those themes. Our broad conclusion: an environment of slowing global inflation, much weaker global growth and less hawkish central banks will be positive for global government bond returns, but problematic for growth-focused spread products like corporate bonds.
In this <i>Strategy Outlook</i>, we present the major investment themes and views we see playing out next year and beyond.
This week we present our Portfolio Allocation Summary for December 2022.
This week we present six key investment views for 2023.
Long-term deflationary forces in Japan are weakening, setting the stage for inflation to make a comeback over the remainder of the decade. Investors should prepare to structurally reduce exposure to Japanese bonds starting early next year. Higher Japanese bond yields will lift an extremely undervalued yen. To the extent that global growth should surprise on the upside over the next 12 months, Japanese equities could see some modest outperformance.
In this Special Report, we consider what some common monetary policy rules are recommending for the major central banks and derive conclusions on duration strategy and country allocation for bond investors. We conclude that rate hike expectations in most countries may appear appropriate given the current global backdrop of high inflation and low unemployment, but look elevated on a forward-looking basis versus slowing global growth and peaking global inflation.