JHSC News and Press, John Hancock Multifactor Small Cap From 01/28/23

Summary While many have their eyes fixated on a “Magical Trendline”, the rest of world has broken above. Canada signalled a PAUSE at its current rate while the Bank assesses the full impact (lagged effect) of its hikes. AAII Sentiment Survey result, Bullish Percent tic...

Summary While the US economy remains in growth territory this year, the odds are rising that it will stumble into a recession during 2023. 2022 was a down year for most asset classes, with the FOMC raising the Fed funds rate by over 400 bps while battling inflation. We expect the cr...

Summary Inflation will continue as the hot story of 2023, and it may have a surprise in store very soon. The Fed appears to be blind to serious problems in the labor market. As a result, its crushing down of the economy could counterintuitively make inflation worse by the end of the...

Summary As we look to 2023, we don’t believe a recession is inevitable as many do; a soft landing is within the realm of reason, or at the very least, a no landing, as was the case in 2022. We’ve long held to a proprietary investment approach which postulates that three cy...

Summary The S&P 500 is very expensive on a PE multiple basis. The index is also very expensive relative to the 10-year rate. This is for earnings growth that is deteriorating. The next leg of the bear market could be here, as investors begin to turn their attention awa...

Summary After a 3.0% expansion in 2022, world real GDP is now projected to increase 1.9% in 2023, up from last month's forecast of 1.6% growth. Monetary tightening, cooling demand, and supply chain resilience are driving disinflation. Declines in industrial commodity prices are now movi...

Summary Tightening monetary policy drove rising 10-year Treasury bond yields and pressured equity valuations in 2022. Interest rates will drive the market environment, to some extent, according to our U.S. growth and core equity and U.S. value equity teams. Given the lagged impact, ...

Summary Reserve provisioning by banks against the likelihood of further deterioration in their consumer and small business loan portfolios. Analysts’ earnings estimates are finally catching up to the market, which decided already in 2022 that conditions were headed south. The...

Summary Looking at the most recent readings of many economic indicators, nowcasting gives a more up-to-date reading of the economy than gross domestic product. The weakest US sector is housing. Building permits have been on a downward trend for much of 2022 and dropped again in December...

Summary ClearBridge is a leading global asset manager committed to active management. Research-based stock selection guides our investment approach, with our strategies reflecting the highest-conviction ideas of our portfolio managers. The pro-cyclical tilt of our portfolio helped the S...