Street Signals

Asia and China specifically have undergone a significant reassessment of expectations in 2023 - from the consensus, re-opening led optimism at the start of the year to facing the realities of sluggish demand and a weaker trade environment. Now, rising oil prices and a stronger dollar threaten this already fragile mix and, this week, Ben Luk from our Emerging Markets strategy team helps us to disentangle which of these risks remain relevant, versus those where the worst news is likely priced in.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More central banks are sounding like they want to pause and take a break from fighting inflation, to assess how their efforts play out after some tentative, initial success. Our metrics from PriceStats have proven valuable in assessing this progress and Alberto Cavallo, co-founder of PriceStats and a professor at Harvard Business School, is back with us this week to talk it through. He has an update on whether the trend breaks towards disinflation that we saw across many economies earlier this year have extended over the summer, or if its time to start worrying about prices picking back up again more broadly as oil prices jump.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's rare to find someone who can speak with expertise on one topic let alone three or four, but we're lucky enough to have Ramu Thiagarajan, Senior Investment Advisor for State Street, to do just that. Ramu and colleagues have published a recent paper on the prospects for de-dollarization, a topic of great interest in both markets and geopolitics that we discuss this week. But equally interesting and important is the expansive background from which Ramu works, marrying academic finance with real-world practice in building his multi-asset outlook, a process we detail in building up to his recent work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A soft landing for the US and possibly the global economy looks achievable, but is it desirable? In the short-run, surely, yes. But in the long-run? Dan Gerard joins us this week to walk through a potential second order risk of complacency on inflation that such an outcome might catalyze, particularly if global labor markets do not loosen further. For investors, this does not mean a rerun of 2022 - thank goodness for that! We complete the discussion with portfolio implications over the remainder of this year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Markets have been relatively quiet but there are concerns bubbling under the surface. While the podcast is going to take some time off to recharge before a busy Autumn, there's enough to think about and many questions to still answer before the year is out. Tim walks through the main takeaways from our recent research with an eye on how to navigate what could be a choppy few months.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In thinking about markets, we can often get the long-term vision right without considering the bumps along the way and how one navigates them. And right now, there are a lot of potential bumps to consider. This week, we are very excited to welcome Peter Vincent, head of trading for EMEA for State Street Global Markets, to talk about his background and experience, how he is thinking about markets at the moment and what periods from a long career of trading macro markets are most like the current environment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After 10 years of mostly steady outperformance, investors are rotating away from tech stocks and the sector is now only keeping pace with the broader index. Anthi Tsouvali joins Tim to discuss whether we have seen peak sentiment around IT and growth stocks and what catalysts would be necessary for resumed strength in this sector. We also briefly walk through Q2 earnings thus far, with an eye on the outlook for the remainder of 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rest of the summer will likely be spent wondering just how much further major central banks need to go in tightening policy. The Federal Reserve in particular sound like they are nearing the end of a rapid hiking cycle - or at least sounding like they want to be done. But US economic activity still looks robust. Lee Ferridge joins Tim this week to discuss the sources of strength in the US economy, what we can expect in the coming months and what it means for US asset markets and the long-term drivers of the US dollar.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new partnership with GeoQuant expands our indicator set to include measures of geopolitical and country risks. We discuss these metrics with GeoQuant co-founder and CEO Mark Rosenberg and Michael Guidi from State Street Associates. Mark also provides us with a deep dive on developments in the US-China relationship, the Ukraine war and the upcoming US presidential election cycle.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next week's Federal Reserve meeting is likely to mean a resumption of rate hikes after June's wait-and-see approach. The main question for markets is what happens after that? Marvin Loh joins Tim to discuss where terminal rates may go and when a policy pivot might come. They also talk about how the shape of the Fed's balance sheet might change in the coming year and whether worries over USD funding are legitimate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.