NEW YORK (Reuters) – J.P. Morgan strategists said they are cutting back on their overweight position in equities and trimming their underweight position in bonds due to increased risk that central banks will make a hawkish policy error.
The escalation of the war in Ukraine adds to those risks, they wrote in their global asset allocation note released Monday.
They said volatility will remain high in stocks, with bond yields likely to continue to be a big driver in the near term.
But investors will also watch companies as they begin to report results on the third quarter. “While EPS revisions have been incredibly resilient so far, earnings are finally likely to see some weakness in Q3,” they wrote.
Bond yields have risen amid the recent hawkish comments from central banks, and in the United States, “intermediate yields look vulnerable given volatility and a dearth of buyers,” they wrote. They are taking off bets that the difference between yields on two- and 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, a gap seen as a harbinger of a looming recession, will flatten.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
