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The US military defines a “complex catastrophe” as a “natural or man-made incident […] which results in cascading failures of multiple, interdependent, critical, life-sustaining infrastructure sectors and causes extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, environment, economy, public health, national morale, response efforts, and/or government functions.”1
Working with Wellington’s Climate Research Team, our Global Macro Team is studying the macro, market, and geopolitical implications of climate change. We see climate change as a complex catastrophe in the making, with the potential to exacerbate geopolitical instability and multiply threats to economic and national security. Governments, including the US, China, and European Union, are beginning to treat climate change as a structural peril. Under the Biden administration, climate change has…
Investors can breathe a collective sigh of relief — for now anyway. The Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) March statement and press conference suggested that the FOMC is likely to look through any inflation pickups this year and wait until the labor market has recovered to assess whether inflation can sustainably stay around 2%.
The FOMC projects significant improvement in the unemployment rate and a modest overshoot of its 2% average inflation target in 2021. But even against expectations for higher growth and inflation this year, the median FOMC member’s forecast still anticipated the…
The transition to the “sunsetting” of long-standing LIBOR benchmarks — initially slated for 31 December 2021 — has been fraught with delays and uncertainty, thanks in no small part to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. There has been progress, however. A number of recent developments reinforce the commitment by regulators and central banks to wean market participants off their reliance on IBORs (interbank offered rates) and to embrace alternative reference rates.
The UK FCA announcement
- On March 5, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) officially announced the eagerly anticipated cessation and non-representation dates on 35 LIBOR benchmarks across various tenors and…
Every quarter, we survey around 100 of our Wellington colleagues in different investment disciplines and locations to get their views on what we see as the key macro questions of the day.
We believe that the framing of the questions is crucial. For example, many surveys ask respondents to list what they see as the current key risks. In our survey, we ask for the top three risks our participants believe the market is most complacent about. That requires them first to think about the risks — which are often fairly evident — and then to grade them on how far they are priced into markets. For us as investors, that is clearly the more important information, as it can help us to identify areas where the markets are mispricing risk and thus creating…
I call it: “Cheap US equities: the low-rate adjustment.”
The strong post-March 2020 rebound in US equity prices rekindled rumblings about stretched or even “bubble-like” valuations. Myriad metrics can be rolled out to suggest “excessive” price levels, but how often do these arguments account for the broader investing landscape — inclusive of interest-rate expectations and the relative risk/return offered by US Treasuries? I believe they should.
Acceptance of paradigm shifts
One way to think about the relative value and appeal of equities is to look through a fixed income lens with a focus on risk-free rates. For the past decade, US stocks have remained cheap relative to Treasuries because…
