Fiscal

Favor Health Care and Utilities for defensive positioning amid economic slowdown and volatility as the presidential election approaches. A Republican Sweep favors Real Estate and Materials, while the second most likely outcome, Democrat gridlock, favors Health Care, and Information Technology.

The great US labor market shortage is over. Labor demand will likely fall short of supply by the end of this year, causing unemployment to soar. Neither fiscal nor monetary policy will be able to prevent the coming recession. Investors should underweight stocks and overweight Treasuries.

China missed the chance to change course on economic policy and now it faces rising social instability and western protectionism. This policy approach implies it is not afraid of escalating strategic conflicts in East Asia. Investors should continue to underweight Greater Chinese assets. Any US-China détente will come later rather than sooner.

Over the past few weeks, global equities have been hit by rising scepticism over the bullish AI narrative and increasing concerns over global growth. Stocks should stabilize in the near term, but the medium-term direction is to the downside. We expect the S&P 500 to drop to 3750 in 2025 and the 10-year Treasury yield to fall to 3%.

GeoMacro team partners with BCA’s Emerging Markets Strategy to examine political reforms in Argentina. Our colleague Juan Egaña argues that the time is not right to go long Argentinian assets and that Buenos Aires must avoid the mistakes of the Macri era: opening to foreign capital flows too soon without addressing structural macro imbalances. However, the Milei administration is on the right path with potentially global implications.

The decision by GeoMacro team on July 2 to short USDJPY and underweight equities has proven to be prescient. We still do not like the market setup from here on out. A recession would, obviously, be negative for risk assets. But even if investors avoid that scenario, the transition from cash- to leverage-driven growth is unlikely without a significant Fed rate-cutting cycle.

Republicans are favored but the election is still competitive. Equities, corporate credit, and cyclical sectors will fall until policy uncertainty is reduced.