Filtered by Subscriptions: Bonds & Equities Use setting Bonds & Equities
Despite all of the debt and deficit news out of the US, the spotlight in ultra-long bond markets has increasingly been focused on Japan. The surge in yields there last week seems to have sparked a global sell-off, and the subsequent plan from Japan’s …
28th May 2025
The 10-year Treasury term premium, as estimated by ACM , rose to a more-than-decade high of ~0.9% last week amid renewed concerns about US fiscal policy. But while the premium remains far below the ~4% it topped in the early 1990s, for example, we doubt …
27th May 2025
We think the yields of Japanese government bonds will continue to rise, but because of BoJ hikes rather than concerns about fiscal sustainability. Fragile bond market sentiment hasn’t been limited to the US lately: a sharp rise in yields in Japan has …
23rd May 2025
The passage of Donald Trump’s ‘one, big beautiful bill’ through the House of Representatives today has done little to calm nerves in the bond market, which had already been frayed by Moody’s recent decision to downgrade the US’ sovereign credit rating and …
22nd May 2025
Despite the latest setback in the S&P 500, we are revising back up our end-2025 forecast for the index in response to the de-escalation of the trade war albeit to a lower level of 6,250 than the projection of 7,000 we had before “Liberation Day”. We are …
Debate over the end of US equity exceptionalism had quietened over the past month amid a historic rally, but with US assets selling off today debate may reignite. Our sense is that US stocks will hold up well against their peers over the rest of the year. …
21st May 2025
We see dimmer prospects for oil prices over the next year or so. But we think that will keep being a sideshow for US equity and bond markets. Admittedly, there has been a sizeable effect on the share prices of US energy companies in general, which is …
20th May 2025
The decision by Moody’s to downgrade the US government’s credit rating highlights that there are several potential storm clouds on the horizon for Treasuries, even if the downgrade itself doesn’t seem so far to have made much of a market splash. …
19th May 2025
There are still a few signs of stress in US financial markets. That’s despite this week’s ongoing rebound in the S&P 500, which has taken it well above its level on “Liberation Day”. It reflects the fact that investors have more to worry about than just …
16th May 2025
One month on from the peak of the post-“Liberation Day” market turmoil, calm has largely returned and most key asset markets have recovered much, or all, of the ground lost in the days following 2 nd April. Indeed, core money markets never looked …
15th May 2025
This report is part of our Future of Europe series. Read more analysis, explore the supporting data, and learn about our broader European coverage on the dedicated Future of Europe page. European markets have had a strong start to the year, and we are …
We think the recent “bear flattening” of the US Treasury yield curve has a bit further to run. The story in the Treasury market over the past few weeks has generally been one of bear flattening (short-end yields rising by more than long-end ones) as …
The rolling back of tariffs has coincided with a recovery in big tech in the US and China. (See Chart 1.) Their dual rally is something new since Donald Trump returned to the White House. We think there’s a good chance it will continue, despite the US …
14th May 2025
Despite the US-China truce, we still think inflationary pressures will prompt the Fed to stay pat for a while yet. But we doubt the 10-year Treasury yield will rise much more from here, even though investors are still pricing in rate cuts. That’s because …
13th May 2025
The recent climbdown has left the effective US tariff rate on the rest of the world at around 15% as opposed to the 27% which was threatened at the height of this year’s trade war. While this is still the highest since the 1930s, it is unlikely to cause a …
We don’t foresee further common-currency outperformance of MSCI’s UK Index vis-à-vis its USA Index, which has largely been a function of their compositions and the strength of cable since Donald Trump’s return to the White House . This is because we …
Global Trade Stress Monitor …
Just over a month ago, we ditched our long-held forecast that the S&P 500 would end this year at 7,000 , and revised it all the way down to 5,500. While that looks like it might have been a mistake, we aren’t inclined to re-adopt such a positive view. We …
12th May 2025
The US and China have each suspended for 90 days all but 10% of their Liberation Day tariffs and cancelled other retaliatory tariffs. This is a substantial de-escalation. However, the US still has much higher tariffs on China than on other countries and …
Thanks to continued optimism over prospective trade deals to reduce US tariff rates, asset markets have generally recouped most of their losses after the 2 nd April tariff announcement. That said, we think that the boost from further trade negotiation …
9th May 2025
Even though the 10-year Treasury yield is close to where it was before “Liberation Day”, measures of term premia remain elevated. At face value, that suggests that the yield could fall quite a bit further, but we suspect any unwind of the recent increase …
8th May 2025
We still think investors are expecting too many Fed cuts over the remainder of this year, and our base case remains that Treasury yields will rise and the US dollar will strengthen. The Fed struck a very cautious tone in Wednesday’s policy statement, and …
We expect government bonds in China to continue to perform well against a backdrop of looser monetary policy, but suspect its currency won’t depreciate as much against the greenback as we had previously envisaged. Meanwhile, we have mixed feelings about …
7th May 2025
We see a few reasons to be sceptical about the chances of a broad-based upwards revaluation of Asian currencies, despite recent moves. At the time of writing the breakneck rally in Asian currencies vs. the US dollar seemed to have come to a screaming …
6th May 2025
The stronger-than-expected April US Employment Report published today leaves us comfortable with our central scenario that the trade war won’t be enough to tip the US economy into recession. So, we think the Fed will keep its focus on inflation and stand …
2nd May 2025
Paul Samuelson famously quipped in 1966 that the stock market had predicted nine of the last five recessions in the US. We suspect it just sent another false signal about an economic downturn. We can quibble over whether we just had a bear market. On a …
Despite the Bank of Japan’s dovish tone today we think it won’t be long before JGB yields start to rise again. And even though concerns about Japanese capital repatriation have seemingly been back on investors’ minds lately, we don’t think higher JGB …
1st May 2025
We think the recent outperformance of euro-zone equities over US ones has run its course. The eight-day winning streak in the S&P 500 may break today, after the market opened down over 1% on news that the US economy unexpectedly contracted in Q1 , on …
30th April 2025
Japanese banks are the one sector benefitting from the BoJ’s tightening cycle as higher interest rates lift their income by more than their expenses. And although they’ve struggled more recently amid the “Liberation Day” fallout, we think their …
The US stock market and the dollar have fared worse over the last hundred days than they fared during the first hundred days of all other presidential terms since 1980. What’s more, there has been an intervening rout in the Treasury market. It is hard to …
29th April 2025
Although the Liberals have just missed out on a majority, Prime Minister Mark Carney should still be able to implement his fiscal plans with support from the NDP or Bloc Québécois. If anything, the need to grant concessions to those parties means fiscal …
Financial markets have staged a robust recovery over the past couple of weeks, even if they are for the most part not quite back to square one after the post-2 nd April turmoil. Given the ongoing uncertainty around US trade policy and the economic outlook …
28th April 2025
The sharp fall in the dollar over the past three months can for the most part be explained by a rapid reassessment of the outlook for the US economy and financial markets, rather than an imminent threat to the dollar’s dominant status in global finance. …
25th April 2025
We suspect the US dollar will recover some lost ground over the coming months as its usual relationship with rate differentials reasserts itself. Seemingly dovish comments from Fed speakers, including Fed Governor Christopher Waller and Cleveland Fed …
Despite further encouraging headlines on tariff reduction, a relief rally in Asian markets trading today has been notable by its absence. This reinforces our view that further gains in equity markets will become harder from here. Two stories broke on …
24th April 2025
Both US equities and government bonds have staged a relief rally over the past 24 hours, as concerns about Fed independence and the trade war have eased. But the fact that the rally was sparked largely by conciliatory remarks from US President Trump – …
23rd April 2025
Fears over the independence of the Fed can now be added to the growing list of things troubling investors. Market moves over the past couple of days shed some light on the likely market consequences of any attempt by President Trump to ouster Fed Chair …
22nd April 2025
Policymakers at the ECB appear to agree with us that risks to growth and inflation are increasingly skewed to the downside, supporting our view that the 10-year German Bund yield will stay around its current level and that the euro will give back some of …
17th April 2025
Our base case is that the turmoil across financial markets in the wake of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement will continue to stabilise. As such, we assume that most asset prices and the dollar will recover some ground, with equities faring …
We think China will continue to allow the renminbi to weaken, perhaps all the way to 8.0/$ . Today’s market moves in China emphasise yet again how US trade policy remains the key driver of financial markets right now. Despite a stronger-than-expected Q1 …
16th April 2025
While the dust from the market sell-off continues to settle, there are few signs that the turmoil in equity and sovereign bond markets has sparked broader instability or a self-reinforcing downward cycle. Our base case is that market conditions will …
15th April 2025
The ongoing fallout across financial markets from President Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement has resulted in a sharp fall in the dollar and what looks increasingly like a generalised loss of confidence in the US as a safe haven in currency and bond …
The market turmoil sparked by the tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump on “Liberation day” has somewhat eased in the past couple of trading days. Absent further bad news, we think the worst has probably passed for US markets, although we see …
14th April 2025
Available data don’t give a definitive answer to whether sales by Chinese institutions contributed to the recent volatility in the US bond market. But China’s state managers of foreign assets still appear to have more than half of their portfolios …
China’s tit-for-tat retaliation in its rapidly escalating trade war with the US exerted some renewed pressure on equities and the dollar today, with bonds still buffeted by expectations of monetary easing and signs of market dislocation. Our base case …
11th April 2025
The trade war has merely delayed rather than scuppered further policy tightening by the Bank of Japan. Accordingly, we’re sticking to our forecast that the 10-year JGB yield will rise to 1.75% by year-end. Whereas the 10-year US Treasury yield has on net …
10th April 2025
US President Trump’s decision to pause the implementation of many of his previously announced tariffs has sent markets – especially equities – soaring, but there are some risk premia remaining that might take longer to fade. We’d flagged only on Monday …
US Treasuries are not benefitting from market turmoil, and we suspect they will keep struggling. Today, China announced that it would charge an additional 84% tariff on imports from the US starting on Thursday. Unsurprisingly, equity markets didn’t take …
9th April 2025
We think the turnaround in longer-dated Treasury yields has bit further to run, if – and it’s a big if – the worst is now over for the US stock market. One reason for the volte-face in bonds is second thoughts about the prospects for Fed policy after …
8th April 2025
The carnage in global equity markets has continued after President Trump doubled down on his tariff plans, noting that “sometimes you have to take a medicine to fix something”. We still think he will lower the dosage by paring back his tariffs. But, if he …
7th April 2025
