Equities

Mid-caps are the best of both worlds and are an excellent strategic overweight thanks to their size premium, but also better financial quality and higher dividend yield than Small. We are bullish on Mid near term and believe that this may be a great trade. We will initiate a position in the S&P 400 as a tactical overweight but will monitor it very closely.

The soft-landing narrative has gotten nowhere at BCA but appears to be making some headway with broker-dealers and investors. We are preparing to lean against it once it pushes equity prices a little higher.

The US has the Magnificent Seven, Europe has the Magic Eight. What drives the performance of those eight stocks crucial to the European market?

Investors should not get their hopes up about the Biden-Xi summit. Wait to see if a new ruling party is elected in Taiwan before downgrading geopolitical risk in the Taiwan Strait. US-China strategic détente is possible but neither the geopolitics nor the macro backdrop warrant a risk-on position next year.

China’s capital outflows will likely remain substantial at least through the next few quarters. This wave of capital outflows will likely be more chronic, albeit less acute than the 2015-16 episode. Persistent capital outflows will exert downward pressure on the RMB.

The latest ‘nowcast’ for world economic growth in the fourth quarter has plunged to just 1.2 percent, marking the cusp of another world recession. One important implication is that expectations for oil demand growth and industrial metal demand growth are way too optimistic.

Amid a range of geopolitical narratives, what matters is that the US strategy of economic engagement with its rivals is failing, giving rise to a new strategy of containment that will reinforce the secular rise in geopolitical risk. Our market-based quantitative indicators of geopolitical risk are set to rise in the coming year.