Standard Chartered Money Insights

Numbers don’t lie, and numbers will help with painting a better picture of the scale and urgency of the climate change issue we are dealing with. Governments around the world and companies have made net zero announcements, and large amounts of investment capital is needed to fight climate change. We will delve deeper into what some of the commonly heard terms and numbers mean.

Speakers:

• Eugenia Koh, Head, Sustainable Investing, Standard Chartered Bank 
• John Cappetta, Head, Private Bank, Asia Advisor, Ninety One 

In today’s episode, we will focus on the pound sterling. In the UK, sentiment has improved, lockdowns have eased and the vaccination rate has continued to be one of the fastest globally, though Scottish elections are a risk. We believe this sets the stage for the UK economy to advance and for the pound to move higher in the next stage of its advance. Listen to our podcast to learn more on how we would trade the pound sterling against this backdrop.

Speaker:

• Manpreet Gill, Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Investment Strategy, Standard Chartered Bank

Climate change issues have increasingly become front and centre globally, and 2021 could be a turning point for tackling climate change issues. There have been supportive big-picture trends such as the European Green Deal and a Democratic U.S. president in Joe Biden who has ambitious plans to fight climate change. We will delve deeper into what are the investment opportunities here and how that relates to ESG.

Speakers:

• Eugenia Koh, Head, Sustainable Investing, Standard Chartered Bank
• John Cappetta, Head, Private Bank, Asia Advisor, Ninety One

Expectations for a global economic and earnings recovery remain relentlessly positive, despite an increasingly tightening policy bias in China and the risk of higher US taxes. We favour equities over bonds. US equities remain most likely to outperform other regions amid supportive policy, in our view. Asia ex-Japan faces headwinds from China’s tightening liquidity and a surge in COVID-19 cases in India and other markets. Asia and Emerging Market USD bonds continue to offer value and Developed Market High Yield bonds may still have room to outperform. A further inflation rise is likely to push bond yields, net-of-inflation, lower – a positive for gold and negative for the USD.

Speakers:

• Steve Brice, Chief Investment Officer, Standard Chartered Bank
• Marco Iachini, Cross-Asset Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

Regular readers of our publications will be aware of our interest in the “USD smirk” framework, which is a slight tweak on the traditional “USD smile”. The smile describes how the USD usually outperforms in a risk-off environment – when there is a shortage of global USD liquidity – or when US growth outpaces the rest of the world and US yields rise. We believe the USD ‘smirk’ is increasingly relevant today, supporting our view of USD weakness in the coming 12 months.

Speaker: 

• DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

The Fed has a deft balancing act to perform this year - keep the US economy 'not-too-hot, not-too-cold'. Global economic drivers, such as a renewed rise in COVID-19 infections in parts of Europe and Emerging Markets and China's policy-driven slowdown, should help keep economies from overheating. This should allow the Fed to keep policy accommodative in the coming quarters. Buy-on-dips remains a preferred strategy. 

Speakers:

• Fook Hien Yap, Senior Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank
• Marco Iachini, Cross-Asset Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

We believe there are a number of reason to be short-term bullish on the CAD, such as Canada's term of trade boost this year, its economic ties to the US and a Bank of Canada (BoC) which is on the verge of tapering. We will delve deeper into why we like the CAD in this week's podcast. 

Speaker:

• DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

We believe the so-called global reflation trade is taking a pause, as reflected in the pullback in US Treasury yields and a few other market indicators. However, fundamental data, including upbeat corporate earnings, point to a sustained recovery in the global economy. Hence, we would use the current dislocations to position for a continued cyclical recovery in risk assets.

Speakers:

• Manish Jaradi, Senior Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank
• Abhilash Narayan, Senior Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

The reflation theme continues to dominate the market narrative after a strong run of economic data and a calming of Fed policy tightening concerns. We continue to believe this combination of broadening growth and central bank intentions to stay very accommodative mean gains in global equities and riskier USD-denominated bonds can extend. 


Speakers:

• Manpreet Gill, Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Investment Strategy, Standard Chartered Bank
• Manish Jaradi, Senior Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank

April has historically been a strong month for equities. This year, it is likely to be stress-tested by investors after a strong Q1 performance. We expect the data and policy in the coming weeks to support the evolving global reflation theme, sustaining the equity market rotation from Growth to Value sectors. Our structural investment themes on new and cleaner technologies are also likely to benefit. 

Speakers:

• Audrey Goh, Senior Cross-Asset Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank
• DJ Cheong, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered Bank