This week in the podcast, we provide an end of summer

update on our earnings transcript review and the high frequency economic,

sentiment, and virus indicators that we track. We also offer a few thoughts on

what tapering means for US equity markets. Three big things you need to know:

(1) Last week’s earnings calls provided an important reminder about the

strength of the consumer. (2) The reflation trades remain tethered to COVID

trends. (3) We think equity investors have already priced in tapering to a

significant degree, given the underperformance of Value and Small Cap that we

saw earlier this summer.