By Philip Lawlor, Managing Director, Head of Global Markets Research
Equity factors made a dramatic U-turn in September, capturing the mercurial and rapidly shifting appraisal of economic prospects across global markets. But we think it's too early to call this a regime change.
As the chart below shows, Value and (less so) Size factors snapped long-running losing streaks across most markets in September, while long-popular defensive Quality and Low Volatility factors retreated.
The September rotation came amid synchronous central bank stimulus efforts and renewed global trade optimism, which helped alleviate the deep pessimism about the