China’s Flailing Reboot

Mark Luschini, Chief Investment Strategist

China’s economy—the world’s second largest contributor to global growth—possessed the potential for an upside surprise this year. The widely anticipated end of its dynamic zero-COVID policy revved up expectations that a torrent of pent-up demand would be unleashed, pushing economic growth past projections and feeding the global need for exports to satisfy China’s voluminous appetite.

Indeed, annual growth forecasts ratcheted up to more than 5% in many cases. Certainly, economic growth soared at the beginning of the year as consumers stoked demand after a lengthy period of stringent lockdowns. However, momentum has eased quite a bit in recent months, especially across the industrial sector.

The Core-Satellite Approach to Fixed Income Investing

Guy LeBas, Chief Fixed Income Strategist

Several times each year, with the relative calm of the summer being one such time, we like to take the opportunity to talk not about market movements and short-term ideas, but about longer-term themes of portfolio construction.

Looking Back to Look Ahead

Gregory M. Drahuschak, Market Strategist

After being trapped in a trading range for many months, the S&P 500 broke the upper boundary of the range in late May but the stocks that propelled the S&P 500 higher were technically overbought.

Excessive concentration in which only five stocks representing roughly 25% of the entire S&P 500 capitalization bred concern that pullbacks in these issues could weigh on the entire market. Instead, these same stocks dramatically increased their dominance in June, which sent the S&P 500 to its highest level since January 2022.

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