We look back at the big themes that have driven cross-asset volatility and the conditions through which we’ve all had to adapt our trading –these include persistently high inflation, a worrying spike in the cost of living and aggressive rate hikes – yet resilient growth. We can also look at more regional-focused issues – a UK gilt tantrum driven by the Truss govt’s unfunded mini-budget, the invasion of Ukraine, the MOF/BoJ intervening to buy JPY and China’s Covid Zero policy.
The culmination of these factors created huge cross-asset volatility, decade-long market regime changes and lasting trending conditions.
Looking into 2023
Markets live in the future, and we look forward to the key themes that could cause volatility throughout 2023 – what’s important is not just to fully note these macro factors, but to understand the trigger points that offer a higher conviction of when to express the themes – taking this further, knowing the markets/instruments and strategies to express the theme is obviously advantageous.
These themes could alter market volatility, range expansion and market structure - so regardless of whether you’re purely automated or discretionary, it can pay to be aware.
While there are many more, these are five potential themes that I am looking at closely for 2023 that if triggered would affect the markets we trade.
1 - High inflation worries morph into growth concerns and a higher probability of a recession
US and global inflation in decline
US CPI (blue) vs M2 money supply leading by 16 months
Growth – while the consensus from economists is that the US economy narrowly avoids a recession, and EPS expectations have not been revised down to reflect recessionary conditions - the markets see a higher probability of this outcome – I back the markets, where we see:
US leading index – red areas represent a US recession
Themes to trade as we price in a recession
2 - Central bank policy – assessing the potential for rate cuts
Rates pricing from June 23 to Dec 23
3 - China reopening and China's market outperformance
We’ve already seen a plethora of measures announced and Chinese markets have rallied hard – China is the elephant in the room when it comes to the global growth outlook for 2023 – a weak 1H23 seems likely but this will then followed by far stronger growth in 2H23 – after a poor 2022, Chinese assets could really outperform in 2023
4 - BoJ policy recalibration – time for the JPY to fly
BoJ chief Kuroda steps down in April but there are already plans for a review of BoJ policy – it feels inevitable that we’ll see a 25bp lift to the BoJ’s YCC target to 50bp – we’ve already seen signs that Japanese banks/pension funds are moving capital back to Japan to get a more compelling return in the JGB market – but could a major policy change cause tremors in global bond markets and promote significant inflows into the JPY?
5 - Politics & Geopolitics – great for volatility, bad for humanity
Obviously one of the most important issues in 2022, not just for markets but humanity - always a hard one for traders to price risk around