Financial Markets

Global instability will continue in 2024 – whatever happens afterward. Slowing economies will exacerbate already high geopolitical risk and policy uncertainty stemming from the US election and foreign challenges to US leadership. Overweight government bonds, defensive sectors, the Americas versus other regions, aerospace/defense stocks, and cyber-security stocks.

We expect the US economy to slow and potentially downshift into a recession sometime in 2024, as tighter monetary policy weighs on consumers and businesses. In addition, (geo)political tensions may increase market volatility. The risk/return for US equities is unfavorable. We recommend that our clients reduce portfolio beta and increase allocations to defensives and quality growth.

We enter 2024 as we were across the last four months of 2023, tactically equal weight across the board until the S&P 500 rally is complete and we gain a better entry point for underweighting equities and overweighting fixed income.

Treasury yields will sketch out a range between now and Q1 2024, with the upside determined by inflation and the downside determined by labor markets.

In this Insight, we discuss the outlook for monetary policy in New Zealand after this week’s RBNZ policy meeting, and introduce related fixed income and currency trade ideas.

The recent increase in Korean exports will likely prove to be a mid-cycle rebound within a cyclical downtrend. Korea’s households and enterprises are among the most indebted globally, and their debt service ratio is among the highest in the world. Korea’s 10-year bond yields have peaked. We discuss opportunities in Korean stocks as well as in fixed income and currency markets.

Our political forecasting scored wins in 2023 but we failed to capitalize on it adequately in our trade recommendations.