
Unlike in Japan, the UK, US and now the EU are in all rates lift-off mode. With reluctance, Central Bankers have implicitly admitted their previous policy error of not raising rates sooner. But was this mistake deliberate? Or unpredictable? Last week, Asset allocators were searching for answers to these two questions in our Multi-Asset feed.

Unlike in Japan, the UK, US and now the EU are in all rates lift-off mode. With reluctance, Central Bankers have implicitly admitted their previous policy error of not raising rates sooner. But was this mistake deliberate? Or unpredictable? Last week, Asset allocators were searching for answers to these two questions in our Multi-Asset feed.
On the one side, strategists and economists at asset management firms have a certain sympathy for central bankers. They could be forgiven for not predicting:
1. A prolongation of the supply chain crisis, induced by COVID and exacerbated by China's zero-policy.
2. The actual arrival of Russian Troops in Ukraine and the resultant food and energy crisis, causing prices to spike.
3. A labour market crisis where vacancies are outstripping the unemployed.
But can Central Bankers be forgiven for:
1. Maintaining the mantra that inflation is transitory, for so long.
2. Accepting inflation as lesser evil than recession.
3. Continuing to believe that the Covid, Ukraine-Russia and Labour market crisis will simply go away soon.
Interestingly, both sell-side and buy-side economists are also suffering from the same delusions of central bankers. You just need to compare their forecasts for the path of rates and inflation to see that consensus is lacking, and hope has taken hold.
The biggest problem with monetary policy is that it cannot solve non-monetary causes of inflation, the likes of which we are seeing today, i.e. the ones the Milton Friedman afficionado's did not experience in the 80's or 90's, 00's, or 10's.
The other problem is that the developed world has been hooked on debt by the same Central Bank pedlars of low interest rates and liquidity, for so long. If these same pedlars now use their monetary tools to control the sources of inflation that they can control, namely consumption and investment, the price is recession or prolonged stagflation. Something which is harder to solve.
In the meantime, central bank errors are reverting too slowly back to the mean of reality, but the electorate is assuaged. One question remains: For how long will this softly softly approach work?


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Market Outlooks, Updates & Insights trending with investors inside RFPnetworks.

Whether the 2022 bear market is ending may seem a fruitless question. Most market forecasters got 2022 wrong. Even today, 2023 consensus earnings estimates vary widely from high single digits to negative 15%. Added to that are the market historians who point to various pervious market downturns over the last century to support their views. Which collectively suggest that the likelihood of 2023 being a down year is low. But what is the reality. Will stocks bounce back in 2023?
The answer is not so simple. It hangs on a multitude of conditional expectations which make prediction difficult and path depemdent. In particular, the path for inflation and rates. Both of which will impact growth and realisable corporate profitability.
Adding to the complexity are the causes and solutions to the current inflation mix, with both commodity inflation and wage inflation being the most tenacious to tame. If monetary policy fails to bring inflation down without a disproportionate decrease in growth, even the current depressed multiples may prevent a stock bounce back in 2023.
In the meantime, the smart money seems to have a preference to ride out 1Q23 with a portfolio tilted towards the quality, dividends and credit.

It's that time of the year that global financial market outlooks fill our research feeds. They are popular throughout the entire business cycle. But this time around clicks have gone through the roof.
We only can conclude that investors are feeling pain in their portfolios. And are looking for the right medicine to soothe their dry throats. And as the bear market firmly takes hold, the 60-40 portfolio has stopped working, and the economy heads towards recession, they are clearly looking for new ideas.
Given the amount of clicks for long term risk premia estimates across all asset classes, we can only assume that Chief Investment Officers and Strategists are refreshing their portfolio assumptions. There's a lot happening on the macroeconomic front as inflation and rates rise, and global growth is continuously revised downwards. This type of research trend on RFPnetworks has historically preceded significant portfolio rebalancing by our clients.
60-40 portfolios may struggle.
What has led to the breakdown in stock-bond correlations in 2022? Inflation? A changed macroeconomic environment? Will the 60-40 portfolio ever work again? Or should it be recalibrated back to reflect the covariances of a different decade.
Questions such as these are at the forefront of portfolio design today. The classic long equity volatility and bond duration portfolio is not working, and is causing a conundrum for asset allocators.
Depending on which economist, strategist, equity or fixed income portfolio manager you follow, the view that we are now in stagflation varies. But that difference in opinion is not the interesting thing. What is more interesting is the variation in the underlying models and analysis they point to, in order to draw their conclusions. The lack of consensus is notable.
What is obscured is causality.
Professional Investors have recently been rotating their portfolios based on the view that inflation is not going away soon. But is this a given?
Looking at headline CPI alone does not tell the whole picture. Digging into the US core CPI excluding food and energy costs, the 'other' drivers of inflation recorded a mediocre 0.3% increase in March in the US - the slowest pace in 6 months.
The world has had time to re-group and re-plan. And as such, the 'other' factors driving inflation - tight labour markets, supply-chain disruption and pent-up demand for a return to normal living - are resulting in a re-normalisation that supports the 'transient is back' argument.
Are future asset class assumptions for expected risks, returns and premia affected the current macroeconomic policy direction? Or are should ALM studies be recalibrated?
Professional investors are being forced to reconsider their investment portfolio design. The efficacy of passive investing going forward is being questioned. And active asset managers are raising their voices, pointing to the abundant supply of alpha across asset classes where region, country, sector and company return dispersion has widened. Curiously, the professional investor community is listening.
What targets and milestones should investors set themselves on their journey towards net zero across all underlying asset classes in their portfolio?
And what are the best tools to get them there?

German Producer Price Inflation Soars 25.9% y/y in February 2022
From transitory to permanent to stagflation. Inflation does not look as though it has yet peaked and their could be worse to come. How will central banks respond?