The US Federal Reserve maintained a status quo on its interest rates at its September meeting, thereby extending a period of zero interest rates that has lasted for virtually seven years already. This decision, which ought to have reassured investors, was on the contrary (...)
Brazil is in recession territory. The country’s fiscal consolidation plan had a major set-back in July as the finance minister Joaquim Levy announced a significant downward revision of the government’s primary fiscal surplus targets. In august, S&P placed Brazil’s foreign (...)
Is traditional asset allocation no longer an option?
Sometimes, I wonder if asset allocators realise how lucky they used to be. We used to have the luxury of combining bonds with equities to form a diversified portfolio. Sovereign bonds – from many countries – used to be of high quality. But I am afraid that those times are now (...)
A Dovish Fed is Set to Support CTA and Macro Managers
Markets were on standby mode ahead of the Fed’s meeting last week. Hedge funds were flat and there was little dispersion in returns across the managers (see chart). Event-Driven outperformed as equity volatility edged lower. Meanwhile, Fixed Income strategies underperformed (...)
The Fed skips its turn... but for how much longer?
We think it is reasonable to bet on an upcoming monetary tightening (next December FOMC): The US economy can fully withstand some interest rate increases; the global economy, probably a bit less; and the financial markets (especially emerging), less still. This means that (...)