NDR Fixed Income Allocation Strategy January 2021 Update
The NDR Fixed Income Allocation Strategy entered the month with aggressive positioning. Both Emerging Markets and U.S. High Yield received large overweight allocations. None of EM's macro, fundamental, technical, or behavioral indicators were bearish at the start of the month. Click the link below to read more about the strategy's positioning.
In April of last year, Huw Pill caught flack for saying that Brits “need to accept that they’re worse off”. This was followed by John Authers coming to the defense of the pilloried BoE chief economist. As we wrote, Authers noted that the comments were taken out of context and explained that the BoE’s Chief Economist was describing how “after a few external shocks, inflation becomes a collective action problem” where “ideally everyone would take a share of the hit, and then they can move on. Human nature isn’t like that, and as a result, economics isn’t like that”. Now, roughly a year later, the BoE’s Catherine Mann has picked up Mr. Authers’ baton. It turns out that people who can maintain their standard of living will tend to do just that! Bemoaning the “challenge” of bringing inflation back to target, Mann said there was “a lack of consumer discipline” to rein in businesses’ pricing power,
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Thoughts From The Divide: The Door is Wide Open
BY JON WEBB
Last week, we flagged Bill Dudley’s abrupt change of mind: he now advocates immediate rate cuts. One might be forgiven for suspecting Bill had spent the week lobbying his old colleagues because the July 31st FOMC statement, and J Powell’s subsequent presser gave rates markets quite the boost. Of course, there were the usual Powell caveats: “If we were to see, for example, inflation moving down quickly - or more or less in line with expectations - growth remains reasonably strong, and the labor market remains consistent with its current condition, then I would think that a rate cut could be on the table at the September meeting”. But judging from SOFR pricing, the market took Powell’s caveats as mere teasing. Powell’s presser comments suggested maybe 50bps of cuts by year-end, but Dec 25 SOFR pricing suggests at least 75bps.
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C8 Weekly Bulletin – Adding Uncorrelated Returns
BY JON WEBB
With equity and bond markets having moved in tandem for the past few years, this week's Bulletin focuses on the potential to add uncorrelated returns to an equity/bond portfolio.
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