BNP Paribas giver overblik over 2015 investeringstemaer i denne analyse
Key themes for 2015
The US will emerge as a growth leader in 2015 (we expect 3.3% GDP for 2015). US unemployment is also expected to drop to 4.9% by end of 2015 and should pass through the NAIRU by April 2015. As such we expect the Fed to start hiking rates in June 2015.
Oil prices are expected to stay at current low prices. This supply shock is a support to growth in many Emerging Markets and Developed Market economies.
The acceleration in wage inflation is expected to be muted, which will limit the pace of Fed rate hikes. Global inflation pressure will remain weak both on a headline and core basis driven by lower commodity and energy prices, and by low global wage pressure.
We expect the ECB to embark on broad-based QE, including sovereign and corporate purchases, by the end of Q1 2015. This may not be enough, and the ECB could be forced to implement another wave of QE in the second half of 2015.
Expectations are that the BoE will raise rates at a similar time to the Fed. The risk is growing that the BoE could push back the expected rate hikes due to a hung parliament outcome in the May elections, weak exports and a slowing housing market.
The BoJ and its government pension fund GPIF are expected to continue their purchase programmes, driving the JPY weaker, keeping real yields negative and JGB yields locked down, whilst driving demand for Japanese equities and foreign assets.
Weaker China growth coupled with excess spare capacity and a slowing housing market will keep a lid on commodity demand. A lot of the downside risk is priced into commodities and we see them trading sideways in 2015.
Emerging Market growth, especially for the commodity producers, will suffer on the back of weak China demand and a higher dollar. All is not negative in EM however, as commodity-importing countries such as India, China, Korea and Eastern Europe should benefit.
The global financial system is still under deleveraging pressure and global savings outweigh investment, which continues to be bullish for bonds, albeit with very diminished returns.
There is a large amount of consensus positioning in the market. Whilst we find it difficult to be non-consensus on some of these positions, one needs to be cautious. The key consensus risks we see for 2015 are: US growth outperformance and a stronger dollar, complacency about Fed policy and pessimism on European growth.
We expect volatility behaviour to follow a similar pattern to 2014 (short, sharp spikes), making it another difficult year to implement leveraged strategies. Moreover, the growing use of electronic algorithmic trading in rates, FX and equity markets will exacerbate these moves. This, combined with leverage stop loss unwinds, will cause sharp overshoots. The use of ETFs could also exacerbate moves in markets such as US HY, where a single event can swing the whole market, which could skew risk reward asymmetrically to the downside.
New regulation has structurally reduced secondary market liquidity and will continue to impact market behaviour and pricing. This will be more acutely felt in bear markets where financial institutions will not have the risk tolerance and balance sheet to support the market, thereby causing an ‘air-pocket’ effect in pricing. This is especially the case for risky assets such as HY and EM hard currency and EM local currency bonds. The reduced liquidity has not been properly priced into the more risky asset classes
