In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast - entitled Fireworks and Firings - we kick off the holiday weekend in the US with an engaging discussion with Torsten Slok, Chief Economist of Apollo Group.
We start with a "vibe check" on the US economy - citing the consensus expectations for growth (falling but positive at around 1%) and inflation (stable and tending towards rising north of the magic 2% target - with consensus in the 3% range). This combination would generally point more towards a stagflationary outcome than a buoyant one, and it does beg the question as to how much wiggle room that the Fed has when it comes to interest rates.
We move then to fixed income markets and global phenomenon of rising long yields, and ask what is the common factor at play. While persistent inflation may be one reason, there may also be nagging doubts around the fiscal conditions at work. Equity markets too are seeing a bifurcation - around tech and everything else, and the concentration only heightens the need for investors to remain diversified.
We end with a discussion of the demand for US assets and how that has recently rebounded, suggesting that non-US investors continue to crave US exposure and explaining a firming of the value of the dollar, which had previously had a weakening trajectory. We look to the portfolio implications of these cross currents - the importance of diversification, continuing to build in recession resilience into every portfolio and to not underestimate the power of private assets to provide diversification and ballast, as a complement (or even an alternative) to global diversification.
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