The Strategist

Like the two characters waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett’s play, many market participants have been waiting for a recession in the United States, which may never come. Many experts assumed that US economic growth would be much weaker this year than it has been so far. And most of them have...

Risks to economic growth dynamics have increased, triggering a downgrade of emerging markets against an upgrade of the more insulated US stock market, now both "Neutral". In Fixed Income we expect the interest rate environment to remain at elevated levels for longer. In our current House View...

Global growth weakness is likely to continue well into autumn, but the US economy has shown remarkable resilience. The stabilisation of the macroeconomic environment has led us to increase the global equity allocation to “Neutral”. On a tactical basis, we are starting to take profits in gold...

As the second quarter of 2023 draws to a close, the longest day of the year is already behind us in the northern hemisphere. For investors, the question now is whether the third quarter will follow on seamlessly from the first two. In the coming weeks, capital markets and investors will have to...

The political dispute over raising the debt ceiling in the US has been at the centre of attention on the financial markets in recent weeks. With the agreement now reached to raise the debt ceiling for two years, which still has to be approved by parliament, the risk of a default by the world’s...

At a global level, we do not expect a recession this year, but economic growth will remain below potential. Developments across the regions are mixed. On this backdrop, we maintain our defensive investment strategy across all asset classes, but the underweight in equities is reduced by building...

The Federal Reserve is considering to end the monetary tightening cycle, but it has no intention to cut interest rates - markets take a different view. Equity investors are currently better compensated in Europe than in the US, therefore we upgrade European equities to “neutral”. The banking...

Any rate cut fantasies seem to have fizzled out and investors have a more realistic view of the Federal Reserve's rate path again. Within the equity quota, we recommend a defensive positioning and prefer the "rest of the world" to the US. After the correction, we are raising gold in the...

The main asset classes had a brilliant start to the new year, yet investors continue to hold high levels of liquidity. In the fixed income space, we consider short-duration investment grade credit strategies to be particularly attractive. We see re-rating potential for the banking sector and...

In a still challenging market environment, patience is required, and investors should stay the course. On the equity side we remain defensively positioned and in the fixed income area we expect positive returns again. In the current market environment, portfolio components with a low...