Latest from BCA Research
Contrary to the prevalent belief in the global investment community, goods/merchandise inventories in the US and East Asia are rather elevated. Financial markets respond to final demand fluctuations, not inventory restocking. Global manufacturing/trade will continue contracting, even though the pace of contraction might moderate in the near run. We recommend that investors fade the current rally.
China’s push to dramatically expand its copper-refining capacity will be complemented by further vertical integration of mining assets. However, surplus refining capacity will push treatment and refining charges lower in the short run. The threat of EU tariffs on Chinese EV imports looms large, and could be costly to China’s expansion of its already-dominant supply-chain ecosystem for EVs and metals refining. We remain long the XME and COMT ETFs to retain exposure to metals miners and refiners.
Poland’s inflation will stay elevated. And yet, its return to the European mainstream has improved its financial market outlook. Accordingly, we are recommending new trades on Polish equity, fixed income, and currency.
The Chilean economy is in a unique position worldwide: as it is the first to enter a recession, it will be the first to recover. Together with historically cheap valuations, this will lead to a sustained outperformance of Chilean stocks relative to their EM peers.
Mid-caps are the best of both worlds and are an excellent strategic overweight thanks to their size premium, but also better financial quality and higher dividend yield than Small. We are bullish on Mid near term and believe that this may be a great trade. We will initiate a position in the S&P 400 as a tactical overweight but will monitor it very closely.
The soft-landing narrative has gotten nowhere at BCA but appears to be making some headway with broker-dealers and investors. We are preparing to lean against it once it pushes equity prices a little higher.