Equity Strategy : Bond yields, China, PMIs and the market leadership

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

Month to date, in SXXP, Healthcare, Energy, Insurance, Staples and Utils are top sectors, a big change from earlier in the year, while the worst are Mining, Autos, Industrials, Travel & Leisure, Semis and Homebuilders. This reversal in leadership coincided with bond yields breaking out higher in August, from 4.0% to 4.30% for US 10 year. Can Defensives work if yields are going up, and should yields be going up in the first place? We think that bond yields’ move is to a good extent driven by inflation forwards moving up, US debt downgrade, and demand-supply worsening, and not just due to forecasters abandoning their recession calls. If the above remain the dominant drivers, then it is unlikely that high-beta stocks will benefit from this; i.e., bond yields might be rising for the “wrong reasons”. MSCI China made new ytd lows last week, down 20%+ from Jan high. This usually mattered for the broader Cyclicals complex, and not just for Miners. Lastly, Eurozone PMIs are meaningfully down since May, coinciding with our downgrade to UW. As we feared, the positive convergence, which was the consensus call over the past 3-4 months by forecasters, is not coming through, PMIs appear to be converging to the downside. Our lead indicators continue to point to no meaningful recovery in the near term. Despite recent Cyclicals stalling, the gap between PMIs and market internals, which we highlighted in our July Chartbook, is still significant. We do not see bond yields moving higher from here, at least not for the right reasons, China is likely staying under pressure, and PMIs are weakening. Put together, we think that Cyclicals can show another leg lower.

This podcast was recorded on 28 August 2023.

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