FLAX News and Press, Franklin FTSE Asia ex Japan From 02/07/22

Stocks and bonds sold off in January as markets repriced for a more aggressive pace of central bank tightening and increased pressures on the global earnings recovery. Tech and other pricey high-growth stocks tend to underperform in periods of rising interest rates. Value returns ...

As we look ahead to 2022, our base case is for positive global growth and elevated inflation in the near term. Though we see inflation moderating during the year, there are upside risks to our forecast. We believe growth assets, such as equities and credit, will tend to deliver positi...

There's one thing markets hate, and that's uncertainty. Sadly, science does not deal in absolutes, just guidance based on the available evidence, of which, right now, there isn't much. The next few weeks could be choppy. For further details see: Variant Volatility

The S&P 500 was down 2.2% last week, which, in normal times, would be barely worth a mention. But in today’s speculative market, that qualifies as a correction. The first two quarters of this year were a big rebound, but last quarter was a bummer with the emergence of the D...

After a 3.4% decline in 2020, world real GDP is projected to increase 5.5% in 2021 and 4.2% in 2022. With some critical supply shortages and shipping bottlenecks persisting into 2022 and beyond, inflation pressures will subside only gradually. The US economy is proving its resilie...

The ASEAN region has shown a strong rebound in manufacturing output during October. As a result of the severe negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread lockdowns and travel bans, many ASEAN economies were in deep recession during 2020. The rebound in industrial produ...

Worldwide manufacturing output growth slowed in October to the weakest so far in the recovery from the initial pandemic lockdowns. This shortfall of production could be to a large extent explained by ongoing supply constraints, in part relating to labour but more widely for raw materi...

Low Vol has been in the doldrums for most of the equity rally from the pandemic lows of March 2020, as would be expected based on its historical return patterns. Well-established academic research has found that stocks with lower volatility (or beta) tend to generate higher risk-adjus...

Risk appetite lifts from one-year low amid expectations of improving near-term market. Sentiment remains subdued by uncertain policy outlooks and political climate. Financials see the strongest favor followed by energy stocks. Tech sees the biggest outlook downgrade. The broad...

The reality of the continuing pandemic has slowed the economic recovery and is reflected in new patterns of spending. People didn’t stop spending during the pandemic. It still remains to be seen if there will be enough of a shift from spending on goods to services to help e...