Monthly Investment Strategy Update

August

Growth will disappoint as austerity across most of the global economy starts to bite.

Global growth will slow by more than the consensus expects in 2011 as fiscal tightening by a large swathe of the developed countries starts to bite. The austerity measures in these countries, which account for sixty percent of developed economy GDP, will add to continued consumer de-leveraging, while banks remain reluctant to lend. Emerging markets will be affected by weaker demand in key export markets, but it is important to remember that these countries have scope to engage in further policy stimulus if required. Indeed, we expect China to ease policy later this year and provide a catalyst for outperformance by Chinese equities.

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July

Aggressive fiscal tightening intensifies the headwinds impeding global recovery.

At the start of the year our central scenario for 2010 and 2011 saw three major headwinds impeding global recovery: fiscal tightening, households rebuilding savings and banks shrinking balance sheets. With governments running scared of bond markets, fiscal tightening is now being aggressively pursued in the euro-zone and the UK. This heightens the key risk to our central scenario – that intensifying headwinds overpower the fledgling private-sector recovery, leading to deflation. Central banks will therefore keep ultra-low rates in place for longer than generally anticipated and stand ready to intervene swiftly with a further injection of quantitative easing.

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June

Fiscal retrenchment will not be limited strictly to peripheral Europe...
Financial markets are in the process of getting to grips with the implications of the fiscal crisis that has followed in the wake of the 2008/09 banking crisis. The problems are not confined to the periphery of Europe, but are spread fairly widely through advanced economies, with some 60% by economic weight having concerning debt-to-GDP ratios. So it is not just in Europe that major fiscal adjustment is required over the coming years, but also in the US, Japan and the UK.

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May

Business surveys strongly suggest global recovery is gathering pace.
Exceptionally robust monthly business surveys for March have provided compelling evidence that the global recovery is gathering pace. The global purchasing managers’ survey rose to a six-year high, attesting to the highly-synchronised nature of the upswing. Individual country surveys have also recovered sharply for their low points, with marked rises in the CBI survey in the UK, the Ifo survey in Germany and Belgian business confidence. Moreover, monthly trade figures show overall world trade rebounding strongly, with the most recent Asian data, IATA air freight traffic and global PMI export orders all signalling that even better news is in the pipeline.

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April

It looks like recovery is becoming more profit-driven and self-sustaining.
The global economy continues to revive and there are some signs that the recovery is becoming more profit-driven and less dependent on stimulus measures. Activity data for the major economies has been comfortably above consensus over the past few weeks. The global PMI is at its highest level since late 2007, while world trade has recovered around 60% of the ground lost during the recession. Nevertheless, the distribution of major forecasters’ growth expectations remains skewed to the downside. In other words, they continue to view the glass as half empty rather than half full. Consequently, risk assets are likely to respond particularly positively to any further good economic news.

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March

Debt burdens - a legacy of the financial crisis - will suppress growth in major developed economies.
We continue to favour emerging market equities to developed markets, where the financial crisis has had the affect of suppressing longer-term relative growth prospects. The past 60 years’ history teaches that deleveraging the consumer, banking and public sectors of the developed economies will take six to eight years, while very high publicsector debt burdens have tended to shave about one percentage point from median growth rates. The corollary to weaker activity in high-debt economies such as Japan, the US, the UK, France, Spain and Greece will be higher average growth in economies with low debt ratios, such as China, Brazil, Australia and Norway.

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February

China is overtaking the US as the driver of global growth.
The US economy, traditionally the driver of global growth, appears to have transitioned from recession into recovery, although recent data has been mixed. This contrasts strongly with China, where recent statistics have exceeded market expectations. Indeed, whereas US economic activity remains significantly below pre-crisis levels, many indicators in China have surpassed their previous peaks.

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January

The new year should usher in better fortunes for the world economy, but headwinds are likely to preclude a return to pre-crisis growth levels.
The prospects for the global economy in 2010 are brightening, with boosts from policy stimulus, inventory rebuilding and, for Asian economies, a recovery in world trade. That said, we expect the path of the recovery to be sawtoothed, with scope for the occasional quarter of economic contraction. The pace of growth is unlikely to match that of the precrisis boom years, with consumer de-leveraging, credit constraints and fiscal tightening expected to dampen momentum. Growth should also ease slightly from the second half as policy stimulus is replaced by private sector demand. 

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