United States

The unwind of yen carry trades caused violent tremors across the globe. Was this shock a one-off event or the prelude to more troubles?

The market backdrop changed a lot between the preparation and the publication of our equity downgrade report. We publish this companion Insight to help investors navigate the new environment.

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%.

Harris picked Walz to patch up her weak side in the electorally vital Midwest. But the US election will continue to weigh on risk appetite, stocks, and high-beta assets because the odds of a single-party sweep are at least 50%, probably higher. Policy uncertainty and risk premiums will rise, not fall, in the coming months.

The prices of multiple financial assets have failed to break above their technical resistances. When this occurs, a breakdown ensues. In brief, global risk assets remain vulnerable. We are upgrading Chinese onshore stocks from neutral to overweight and offshore ones from underweight to neutral within EM and global equity portfolios.

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.