Standard Chartered Money Insights

Unlike the protagonists in Netflix’s Money Heist, the market’s interest in gold has been lacklustre this year. Join DJ Cheong as he offers a brief update on the macro environment, gold’s fundamentals, investor flows and the outlook for the precious metal over the next few weeks. Speaker: - DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank For more of our latest market insights, visit Marke...

Germany’s upcoming federal election has the potential to fundamentally alter the policymaking compass of Europe, lifting its growth potential. The ECB too remains highly accommodative, despite upgrading growth and inflation forecasts and announcing plans to slow the pace of its pandemic bond purchases. We believe the unfolding political and policy map of the Euro area will enable regional equities...

Price action within G10 FX has been one of USD underperformance but can that persist? In this episode, DJ Cheong revisits the USD ‘smirk’ framework and posits where the USD is headed in the short-term following a dismal US job data release. Speaker: - DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank For more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go .

China’s markets are likely turning a corner, with some assets such as internet sector equities offering short-term tactical opportunities and others such as High Yield bonds and material and industrial sector equities offering medium-term openings. We will need to see a dovish turn in China’s fiscal, monetary and regulatory policies before we become more constructive on China equities more broadly...

In this episode, DJ Cheong talks about the underlying message from the Fed’s recently concluded Jackson Hole symposium and how that impacts our near-term and medium-term USD views. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank For more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go .

'Talking about tapering' is now well underway and we expect the US Federal Reserve to announce bond purchase tapering by end-2021. This could create temporary volatility, but strong economic and earnings growth and rock-bottom policy rates mean we retain a preference for equities over bonds. Speakers:  Marco Iachini, Cross-Asset Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank Abhilash Narayan, Senio...

In this podcast, DJ Cheong provides an update on the recent wobble in risk assets and how that impacts risk-sensitive currencies like the AUD. The UK and Australia’s contrasting approaches to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic provides investors with an opportunity to add exposure to GBP/AUD on dips. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank For more of our latest market insig...

Risk assets wobbled and stock market volatility jumped as Fed meeting minutes showed most policymakers want to start tapering bond purchases this year. Should investors be worried? While the minutes surprised markets, given prior expectations of an early 2022 tapering start, we do not see a slightly earlier tapering imparting a lasting drag on risk assets. Speakers:  Marco Iachini, Cross-Asset Str...

While our Chief Investment Office’s central view is that inflation will likely be transitory, in part 2 of this conversation, strategists Audrey Goh and Trang Nguyen delve deep into historical data to offer investment options to consider across a range of inflation scenarios. Speakers: Audrey Goh, Senior Cross-Asset Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank Trang Nguyen, Portfolio Strategist, Standard Cha...

After more than a decade largely below target, recent inflation data in the US have jumped sharply. However, ample slack in labour markets lead us to believe inflation will prove transitory. In part 1 of this conversation, strategists Audrey Goh and Marco Iachini elaborate further on why the Chief Investment Office believes inflation will be transitory and run through a scenario analysis of what c...

In this podcast, DJ Cheong talks about recent risk-on/risk-off dynamics and how that may affect currency markets. Traditional safe-haven currencies like the JPY and CHF have notched gains amid global growth fears, continued COVID-19 concerns and geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East. Pairs like EUR/JPY and AUD/JPY look interesting here and could offer investors a tactical opportunity to posi...

Our strategy of averaging into Value-style equities may be starting to pay off. The revival of confidence in the US economic recovery after a solid jobs report and yet another quarter of surprisingly strong US and European corporate earnings have led to a recovery in bond yields. Although the resurgence of COVID-19 worldwide remains a concern, we see the renewed confidence as a catalyst for global...

Gold had a rough start to the week, falling as low as 1685 before paring losses. In this episode, DJ Cheong delves deeper into the precious metal’s latest sell-off and whether the price correction offers investors an attractive entry point. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank For more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go .

Monetary policy hawks have selectively started to appear along the horizon. Several Emerging Market and commodity exporter central banks have started to taper bond purchases or raise policy rates. Recent signals from Fed policymakers support our expectation of a tapering announcement later this year. This risks triggering temporary market volatility, but strong growth and earnings data give us con...

In this episode, we focus on the AUD and NZD, comparing their central bank policies, economic performance and sensitivity to risk-off sentiment. We have a preference for the NZD over the AUD in the near-term as the RBNZ remains one of the more hawkish central banks around. Hence, we believe AUD/NZD could see more downside in the coming weeks. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Cha...

We see equity markets transitioning to a slower, but more sustainable, pace of gains as countries vaccinate and learn to live with COVID-19. US and European equities remain preferred. We view Asia ex-Japan and China equities as core holdings, but await more attractive entry levels. In the coming months, markets are likely to focus on the timing of Fed tapering of bond purchases, China’s policy dir...

UK hospitalisation and mortality rates will be key for the UK’s ‘vaccinate and live with it’ COVID-19 strategy. While investors are likely to shuttle between fear and hope, we expect the UK's strategy to succeed, which should gradually lift the GBP. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

The August-October period tends to be seasonally lacklustre for equity markets, but this year we are focussing on three key issues. The UK experiment with the idea of living with COVID-19 after adequate vaccinations could show the world a path out of the pandemic. Corporate Q2 earnings are another bellwether. Sustained positive surprises should help equity markets continue to climb the ‘wall of wo...

In this first instalment of “Talking Thematics” we discuss the benefits of thematic investing. We also introduce our podcast listeners to our preferred themes for 2021 and highlight the investment opportunities arising from the trends underpinning these themes. Our thematic ideas encompass structural themes such as climate change, disruptive innovation and investing in a world of low-yields as wel...

China’s cut in bank reserve requirements raises the chance of further policy easing. We would need to see signs of further relaxation, especially with regard to regulatory policies, before we consider turning more bullish on Chinese equities. We believe USD-denominated corporate bonds are a more attractive route to taking exposure to China, besides select equity sectors which are likely to benefit...

Regular listeners will know that we hold a favourable view towards the NZD over a 12 month horizon. In this podcast, we provide a quick update on what to expect at tomorrow's Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) policy meeting and how it fits into broader NZD fundamentals. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

The pullback in US government bond yields has contrasted with the ongoing reflation and recovery narrative. Are lower bond yields signalling challenges ahead?  We believe not, given the fall in yields is driven by positioning, falling economic surprises and inflation expectations. Instead, we believe it is creating an entry opportunity in Value and non-US equities and High Yield bonds. Speakers: ...

Uncertainty around the trajectory of Fed tapering could prop up the USD in the short-term, but we expect the USD downtrend to reassert itself over the next 12 months. The CAD remains a favoured currency in this scenario given its supportive terms of trade, a relatively more hawkish of Bank of Canada (BoC) and links to global growth. Speaker: DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Ban...

Concerns about the longevity of the economic expansion, new COVID-19 variants and Fed policy are likely overdone. We see the recent gains in Developed Market government bonds and in Growth-style equities as opportunities to rotate into our preferred risk assets. Speakers:  Steve Brice, Chief Investment Officer, Standard Chartered Bank Audrey Goh, Senior Cross-Asset Strategist, Standard Chartered B...

Most of us tend to associate the word “transition” with energy transition and oil and gas companies. However, transition can also be applied more broadly to say that companies of today need to transition into more sustainable business models to position themselves to be successful in the future. We will delve deeper into what this looks like by looking at the ESG metrics that are material for the...