Filtres

More questions than answers at this juncture

With the end of the year just around the corner if you consider Christmas decorations as a leading indicator, it’s already time to think about the macro scene and markets outlook for 2024. As you all know “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future”. So, I would love to receive a new […]

Trick or Treat?

At the time this letter will hit your screen I will be on holiday. While I will obviously enjoy it and benefit fully from my days off treat, I am somewhat concerned about the many tricks that markets may play to frighten investors during my absence as a busy data-packed week await us. In the […]

Catch me if you can!

Over the past few weeks, I have tried to show that US financial conditions may not be as restrictive as one might think, given the Fed’s swift rate hike since March 2022 (from 0.25% to 5.5% in 18 months). As a result, the US economy has proved much more resilient than expected so far. Among […]

Please, don’t mess up!

In a week overshadowed by the geopolitical tensions in the Middle-East after the terrorist attack from Hamas in Israel, the IMF’s latest economic outlook, released last week during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Marrakesh, went almost unnoticed. While it wasn’t obviously as tragic as many events currently unfolding around us, […]

Something has changed

I think I have had another calling, like in the Netflix series “Manifest” (see my weekly letter of August 22nd, 2022), as I was feeling and I have thus argued that something was changing or has changed for some time now… Actually, it all started at the end of last year when I did a […]

Take it easy? Just wait for the not-so-cool second-round “kiss-cool effect”!

“Eppur, si muove”… Who would have thought it? Despite an increase of 525bps in the US Fed funds rate over the last 18 months, the US economic growth continues to defy rates gravity, as well as most pundits, showing resilience -to say the least-. Even more striking, financial conditions still remain broadly accommodative…, which is […]

Navigating through a CCC backdrop (Confusing, Contradictory & Challenging)

While China is facing structural risks from the 3Ds of Debt, Demographics and Deflation as recently coined by Morgan Stanley, the macro backdrop could be defined as CCC with economic data sending Confusing and somewhat Contradictory messages in an overall still Challenging context. Let’s take the latest US data released on Friday. Beyond the upside […]

Is this economy different?

In general, seasoned investors are wary when they hear or read somewhere that “this time is different”. Interestingly, there have been plenty of articles in the financial press lately about China turning eventually Japanese. With weakening growth and inflation already nearing 0%, the current 2nd largest world economy seems indeed on the brink of experiencing […]

Upside Down

One of the most interesting aspects of the markets since the start of the year has been that investors have been caught completely off-guard. Your scribe included. Actually, it has been completely upside down compared to the consensus expectations and positioning that prevailed in January: underweight in equities, long China on re-opening narrative, negative techno-long […]