With 2024 just around the corner, there are big uncertainties for the U.S. economy regarding inflation, interest rates, political uncertainty, and a possible recession.

How can investors navigate this complex and volatile environment? What are the sectors to look at? 

In this episode, Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group & Sonu Varghese, VP, Global Macro Strategist at Carson Group, chat with Ed Clissold, Chief U.S. Strategist at Ned Davis Research, to explore the 2024 economic outlook of Ned Davis Research. 

They discuss the effects of the political uncertainty, what sectors to watch in 2024, the possibility of a shift towards small and mid-cap stocks and the implications of higher short-term interest rates. Additionally, they touch on the labor market, the Fed, and the possibility of a recession.

Together they discuss: 

• Ed’s over 20 years at NDR, emphasizing the collaborative and data-driven approach
• Whether the Fed can successfully achieve a soft landing for the economy and the potential turbulence ahead
• The chance of a recession and the factors contributing to this risk
• The political implications for the Fed's decision-making process
• The importance of considering both soft data and hard data in analyzing the economy and the mixed signals they provide
• The historical market performance during presidential election years
• The potential rotation towards small and mid-cap stocks
• Jerome Powell's performance as the Fed Chair
• The favored sectors and the underweighted sectors for the upcoming year
• And more!

Resources:

• Any questions about the show? Send it to us! We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] 

Connect with Ed Clissold: 

• Twitter: @edclissold
• LinkedIn: Ed Clissold
• Ned Davis Research 

Connect with Ryan Detrick: 

• LinkedIn: Ryan Detrick

Connect with Sonu Varghese: 

• LinkedIn: Sonu Varghese

About our guest:

Ed Clissold, CFA, is the Chief U.S. Strategist for Ned Davis Research Group. He and his team are responsible for the firm’s U.S. equity, style, sector, and equity theme analysis. They do so via a combination of a top-down analysis of the macroeconomic and fundamental environments and a bottom-up analysis of factors specific to the asset class, market cap, style, sector, or theme. He and his team also provide in-depth macro research on fundamental topics such as earnings, dividends, and cash flow.

Ed writes several U.S. Strategy publications, which provide an intermediate-term outlook on U.S. markets via a combination of top-down and bottom-up analyses. He also writes a quarterly Benchmarks report, which analyzes the attribution of returns across asset classes, sectors, market cap, and styles. 

Ed has held a number of other positions since joining the firm in 2002, including Global Equity Strategist, Senior Global Analyst in the Global Asset Allocation group, and Analyst in the Custom Research Services department. Previously, Ed worked at Strong Capital Management and as a Market Strategist at J.C. Bradford & Co.