Aug 27, 2020 | US Economy
US equities are beginning to behave more normally. The average pairwise correlation across S&P 500 stocks has plunged (top-left chart), which tells us that stocks are starting to move independently from one another and are no longer driven to the same extent by...
May 7, 2020 | Emerging Markets
Brazil has so far avoided an aggressive national lockdown, but is nonetheless at the mercy of unprecedented demand destruction in developed markets and the collapse in global commodity prices. With the Bovespa losing 50% of its value in USD terms, the bad news, and...
Jan 15, 2020 | US Economy
Only a few weeks ago, top-of-mind risk for market participants was the trade war, according to BAML’s Global Fund Manager Survey. Now it is highly likely the list would be topped by tensions in the Middle East after the US assassination of the Iranian general, Qasem...
Oct 11, 2019 | US Economy, US Equities
With consumer confidence measures released a couple of weeks ago, we have observed an interesting divergence between the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index and Conference Board consumer confidence index (top-left chart). When we plot the spread and...
Sep 6, 2019 | US Equities
Falling yields across the developed market world have posed greater hurdles for investors with yield and income targets. As the spread between bond yields and equity dividend-yields diverge, these investors move up the risk spectrum to meet their targets. As such, we...
Aug 22, 2019 | US Economy
Over the last five Fed easing cycles consumer staples, healthcare and energy provide the highest average total return above the index one year after the Fed’s first cut. This is not too surprising given that the Fed started cutting as recessions loomed in 2007 and...
