Equity Strategy: April Chartbook

Speaker: Mislav Matejka, CFA, Head of Global Equity Strategy

In terms of leadership, US and Japan are ahead of other markets ytd, Growth is outperforming Value and large caps are again beating small, in all key regions. We continue to believe that this style of leadership will broadly stay the case for a while longer, until there is a break, or a reset, in the cycle. For Value, commodities, low Quality, small caps, EM or International stocks to begin leading more sustainably one needs to see a reflationary backdrop, in our view, but we could have the opposite. Within this, we have recently taken profits on US vs Eurozone OW, as the Eurozone risk-reward has improved, in our view. Among other, Eurozone valuations appear very attractive, relative growth momentum could be bottoming out and ECB could start moving ahead of the Fed, which would be very atypical. We also have a tactical buy on China given extreme cheapness and UW positioning by most investors. Broadly, JPM Fixed Income’s call is that bond yields are fundamentally set to move lower in 2H, but we note a pickup in inflation swaps, as well as the outright negative term premia for bonds again, which suggests that there is a lot of complacency in the bond market with respect to the inflation risk. Consequently, the gap that has opened up ytd between Fed futures and the equity market is getting wider. Equities rallied almost 30% from last October lows, driven in Nov-Dec by the expectation of a Fed pivot, but these projections have fully reversed back to October low levels. Equities are ignoring the most recent pivot of a pivot, which might be a mistake. The assumption that the market is likely making here is one of growth acceleration coming to the rescue in 2H. In this regard, we note that earnings projections for 2024 are still not moving up. Regionally, Japan is staying our top pick, continuing our 2023 preference.

This podcast was recorded on 31 March 2024.

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