Street Signals

The first few weeks of 2024 see interest rate markets in flux, assessing and re-assessing the extent of forthcoming policy easing cycles from the world's major central banks. Crucial to the outlook for rates is the likelihood of each achieving the hallowed soft landing - a normalization of inflation with minimal hiccups from a weaker labor market or below trend growth. Some economies stand a bette...

Volatility has been subdued to start the year, but geopolitical risks are on the rise. We have yet to see the turmoil and unrest in the news have any strong effects on markets, yet it has the feel of calm before a potential storm. Elections in Taiwan, recurrence of violence in the Middle East and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine all carry implications for great power competition as well as economie...

Street Signals returns from a brief winter hibernation, with the first two weeks of the New Year offering plenty of food for thought. Dan Gerard is back with us to discuss how the consensus views formed at the end of 2023 are already being challenged and we focus on what stands out as most relevant from our own research and indicators to help contribute to this discussion. So far, the trends of la...

It is hard to imagine being a market strategist and not being a voracious reader. The Strategy team at State Street Global Markets certainly love a book. And every Christmas, it is tradition for us to publish recommendations of the best things we've read (or listened to!) over the previous year - often they have nothing to do with our day jobs. This year, we published our 10th edition of that list...

Following on the heels of our top trades in equities, rates and FX, this week Street Signals brings a broader discussion of the biggest questions for financial markets in the coming months. Is global growth set to slow dramatically or are expectations now too low? What does that mean for risk markets? Will geopolitics have a greater influence in 2024 than they did this year? Dwyfor Evans, Lee Ferr...

The year is winding down and thoughts are shifting to what will drive markets in the New Year. There will be unknown unknowns that will surely move markets, but in this special edition we will focus on the best ideas we have to express views on the known unknowns. Every year the Macro Strategy team members independently choose the idea they think has the best chance of success in the coming year....

2023 has been a most unusual year. Despite significant stress in the US banking system early in the year, an ongoing war in Europe, a new war in the Middle East and gyrations in rate markets, volatility has fallen from last year's highs, back to range lows. This week, we are pleased to welcome our head of Global Markets, Tony Bisegna, to Street Signals to discuss why 2023 seemed more quiet, whethe...

Despite protests from central banks that the fight against inflation is not yet won, expectations for easing next year are building and being pulled forward. Timing these turns in markets is tough but the moves in rates are coming just as measures of central bank coverage tone, produced by State Street in a partnership with MKT MediaStats, are turning similarly dovish. MediaStats co-founder Gideon...

The calm in currency markets since the late summer has been one of the stranger puzzles of the last year. Its not as though FX markets have nothing to think about - questions over both risky and riskless asset valuation have dominated thinking for the last three months. And yet volatility in most markets, but particularly in FX, is dropping like a stone and reaching multi-year lows. This week, Tim...

Our annual series of Research conferences around the world came to a close this week, with events across Europe. This week, Tim flies solo and gives a summary of the outlook for macro and markets for the remainder of this year into 2024, informed as ever by the message from our unique suite of indicators of institutional investor behaviour, risk and inflation. See omnystudio.com/listener for priva...

It has been a year of two halves for equity markets. The belief that central bank easing would come to the rescue bolstered returns in the first half, but a higher-for-longer message from the Federal Reserve and other central banks, thanks in large part to a resilient US economy, is starting to take its toll. Marija Veitmane, our global head of Equity Strategy, makes a long overdue appearance disc...

It's a question increasingly asked in market discussions, especially since the brief period of deficit drama in the UK last year - is the weight of sovereign debt too much for investors to bear? And, if not yet, is there a level of yields at which debt spirals become more likely? Marvin Loh, senior strategist on our team in the US, is back to discuss those questions, as well as to provide guidance...

Markets often struggle to discount geopolitical risk and the response to the extreme violence in the Middle East last week and subsequent escalation of rhetoric seems to be no exception. Relatively benign movements in energy and capital markets thus far perhaps betray a complacency that our guest this week, Elliot Hentov from State Street Global Advisors, believes could be tested. Fragmentation gl...

It's been another rough year for bond markets, but the makings of a recovery are starting to appear. Inflation is cooling, monetary policymakers do not sound too worried about the effects of recent oil price rises and the impact of horrific and consequential geopolitical events is a reminder of the safe haven qualities many bonds have. Fred Goodwin is back to discuss the recent dynamics in fixed i...

The Federal Reserve's higher-for-longer message is still being digested by markets and pushing the dollar higher as a consequence. The longer these moves persist, the more problems it potentially creates, especially for riskier, emerging market currencies previously buffeted by their own high underlying rates, as well as for currencies in economies where the central bank can no longer keep pace wi...

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 disen...

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 upda...

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...

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...

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...

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 a...

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 th...

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 econ...

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.c...

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 fundin...