Global Markets Podcasts

George Goncalves, Head of Macro Strategy in the Americas, recaps last week’s labor data where we received several important revisions to data and models. Additionally, George highlights what to look out for January's CPI report and concludes with what other potential catalysts to watch for.

George Goncalves, Head of Macro Strategy in the Americas, summarizes and recaps our monthly titled Risk-Off Flashpoint (Now in Focus), where in our special topic cover labor market dynamics and demographics. Furthermore, George discusses what to expect from this all-important NFP number on Friday. We conclude with what to look out for before the March Fed meeting and what will be influential for US fixed income.

George Goncalves, Head of Macro Strategy in the Americas, discusses our outlook for the Fed’s first meeting of 2025, in which we believe the Committee should be “defiantly data dependent” and keep rates on hold. We focus on our base case that Powell will deliver a neutral message, but also discuss risks around that view. We conclude with our expectations for how markets will trade in the coming weeks.

George Goncalves, Head of Macro Strategy in the Americas, summarizes our key themes that will impact the US macro and market landscape in 2025. We focus on what are the potential US economic scenarios ahead, how to think about “Trump 2.0” and what will be the role of the Fed in 2025.  We conclude by reviewing our base-case versus bull/bear scenarios for US fixed income.

This week George Goncalves, MUFG Head of U.S. Macro Strategy, walks us through some of the key topics and our views from the November monthly report, US Macro2Markets Outlook: Markets feel adrift post-election, now what?

This week George Goncalves, MUFG Head of U.S. Macro Strategy, discusses the market implications heading into and out of the recent US presidential election. In George’s view there are a couple schools of thoughts forming on how markets participants are looking to further position for a 2^nd Trump administration, one that also has Republicans in power in the Congress as well. 

This week George Goncalves, MUFG Head of U.S. Macro Strategy, provides an update to our latest house views on the Fed and US rates forecasts post the solid September NFP jobs report. Even though the team have doubts on the overall quality of the recent NFP reading and that one number does not make a trend. At face value it was a strong report and it will likely result in the Fed cutting at a slower pace. We are now expecting the Fed to deliver a 25bp cuts going forward and tweaked on our longer term rates forecasts. 

On the back of a recently published FOMC preview report, this week George Goncalves, MUFG Head of U.S. Macro Strategy, walks us through what to expect at the September FOMC meeting and the rationale for why our house view is calling for the first cut to be 50bps. George also explores how this easing cycle may progress. 

This week George Goncalves, MUFG Head of U.S. Macro Strategy, reviews the last major macro event that happened this past Friday, the Fed’s Jackson hole symposium. Specifically chair Powell’s opening speech acknowledged that the labor market cooling is unmistakably happening now (and in reality has been in our view for many quarters) and thus the Fed has pivoted to worrying about the jobs picture. As a result, chair Powell said the “time has come” to start adjusting policy rates lower (likely at the September meeting) to help combat further labor market weakness. Given that many of the conditions that have led up to this Fed pivot formed the basis for our house view for the better part of the year, we have not made major changes to our outlook for the Fed, economy, and markets. Prior to the event we already had increased our odds for larger rate cuts, where if the August NFP is weak, the Fed will likely start this easing cycle with 50bps. Meanwhile, this month has felt much longer than the typical August summer, George echoed back to another similarly long and volatile August, the August of 2007. George believes that the conditions are different to back then but the valuation setup is similar in terms of markets that are over-valued and sentiment very complacent. George argues that 2007 taught us to value liquidity and watch out for vol triggers. 
 

This week George Goncalves, MUFG Head of U.S. Macro Strategy, puts into context how risk market preferences and a buy the dip mentality has likely led to the bounce from oversold conditions that were present at the early start of August around the adjustments of positioning.  George remains cautious and expects more episodic vol events over the end of summer into early Fall. Meanwhile George highlights what to watch and what may change chair Powell’s message at Jackson Hole with the jobs data being the driver.