Developed Countries
US durable goods order delivered a positive surprise on Wednesday. New orders unexpectedly expanded by 0.2% m/m in August, beating expectations of a 0.5% m/m decline. Similarly, core capital goods orders (a proxy for business spending plans) and core capital…
US dollar strength and rising real rates have created a toxic mix for the yellow metal over the past few months. Gold prices have fallen by 7.3% from the May peak and are on track to erase the year-to-date gains. Conditions are unlikely to improve much over…
Brent crude oil price surged by 2.96% to an 11-month high of 96.75 on Wednesday on the back of ongoing supply concerns and data from the US EIA showing an ongoing decline in domestic inventories. The weekly inventory draw accelerated to 2.2 million barrels in…
Although BCA Research’s Global Investment Strategy service regards fears of dedollarization as overblown, the team is bearish on the longer-term outlook for the greenback due to two key concerns. First, the dollar remains overvalued. It currently trades 21%…
The Conference Board’s Consumer Survey results delivered a negative signal about the US consumption outlook on Tuesday. Although the present situation component inched up marginally in September, a 9.6-point drop in the expectations component to 73.7 drove…
On the surface, US housing market data is sending conflicting signals. On the one hand, both the FHFA as well as the S&P CoreLogic gauges of US house prices surprised to the upside in July and are now expanding on both a month-over-month and year-over-year…
The year-to-date rally in US cyclical stocks has fizzled. After climbing 29% in the first seven months of the year, cyclical equities are down 6.0% since the beginning of August. This drop is happening in the context of a general equity selloff. However, the…
One of the few things US equity investors agree upon these days is that the S&P 500 is expensive whether it is relative to history, other asset classes, or the level of interest rates. But how overvalued is the market? To this end, BCA’s US equity strategists…
According to BCA Research’s European Investment Strategy service, energy stocks are an appealing overweight as a hedge against oil supply cuts. For now, the earnings of the energy sector continue to lag that of the broad market. However, relative earnings…
The message from the German Ifo is that although business sentiment continues to weaken, the pace of deterioration slowed in September and appears to be in the process of bottoming. The Business Climate Index’s marginal 0.1-point decline to 85.7 delivered a…