市场能否维持‘黄金组合’，还是需要调整？

Thematic Research Can markets pull off goldilocks, or doessomething have to give?Last week we wrote that markets were pricing"goldilocks" conditions: Macro Strategist+44-20-754-11149 premise of resilient and even accelerating growth. Indeed, last Friday sawthe VIX index hit its lowestlevel of 2026 sofar.Second,ratesmarkets arepricingthatcentral banks are nearly done with hikes, with only one or two more priced from the likes of the Fed and ECB. Third,commoditymarkets are pricing thatthe supplyshocks will provecontained.Brent cruderemains well beneath its recent peaks,and the oilfutures curve is still downward-sloping on hopes for a reopening of theStrait of Hormuz. Wearguedthisfeltlikeadislocationandwasunlikelytoholdforasustainedperiod.This goldilocks windowisn'ta sustainableequilibrium. Butacommonquestioninresponse,was“Whydoessomethinghavetogive?Why can't this situation simplypersist?" Figure1:OnFriday,theViX indexclosed at itslowest levelof2026sofar Figure2:Moreover,Bloomberg's indexofUSfinancialconditionsclosedatitsmostaccommodativelevelsince1996 Thematic Research Right now,markets are pricing a near-immaculate scenario where basically everything goes right.This has helped power extraordinary gains for many assets,withtheS&P500currentlyontrackfora4thconsecutiveyearofdouble-digitgains,somethingnotseensincethe1990s. something inevitablyhastogowrong.Butifwestarttothinkthroughthepotentialmacro scenarios from here, it'svery difficult to see howthis current equilibrium issustainable ona cross-asset basis. definition, strong growth and buoyant risk assets mean that financial conditionswill remainaccommodative,raisingdemandandpushing centralbanksintofasterrate hikes.This is not just hypothetical either.On Friday, Bloomberg's index of USfinancial conditionsreached its mostaccommodative levelsince1996. To be fair, this might be fine if inflation were belowtarget, and central banks couldsimply accommodate stronger demand.But headline and core inflation remainabovetargetacrossmostofthemajoreconomies,includingtheUSandtheEuroArea.Sothepressuretohikerates (withsomealreadypricedin)wouldpersistinthisscenario.Indeed,inpastcycles,currentlevelsofinflationhavebeenconsistentwithmultiplerate hikes,raisingtherisk thatmarkets arecaughtoffguard (again)bytheextent of central bankhawkishness.And if centralbanksdidn'thikerates,thatwouldforceits ownadjustmentas inflation expectationsandlong-endbondyieldsrose. Figure3:Inthepast,Fedhikingcycleshavebeenstronglycorrelatedwiththeinflationstartingpoint.Based onpastcycles alone,that would implyover100bpsoftighteninggivenCPlisabove3% There are clear precedentsforthistype of situation occurring,where strong growthsustainsriskassetsbutforcesanadjustmentontheratesside. Thematic Research expected,asUSgrowthandinflationforecastsbothsawupgradesinH1ofthat year.That supported risk assets, but there was a clear adjustment onthe rates side, with the 10yr Treasury yield up from 3.88% at end-2023 to apeak of 4.70% in late-April.Furtherback, this also has echoes ofwhattook place in1999.In retrospect, wecanseethatthiswastowardstheendof thedotcombubble.Butatthetime,theFedhikedratesgivenmountinginflationarypressuresandrobustgrowth,particularlyastheeconomyhademergedfromtheaftermathoftheRussianfinancial crisis in1998.Theresulting economic strength supporteda big jump in yields, with the 10yr Treasury surging from 4.65% to 6.44%that year,anannual gain that was only surpassed in2022. hikes that are priced in already,and not gofurther. But that also looks trickyto pulloff, as markets are onlypricing in a single rate hike from the Fed at present, and a"one-and-done" hiking cycle is very rare historically. Indeed, the only time in the21st century it'shappenedwas a single hike in late-2015,before ittook a full yearbeforethesecondhike.Butthatwasunexpectedratherthanplanned.Indeed,whenthe Fed delivered the first hike, the dot plot signalled four more hikes for 2016, andthe decision to remain on hold for longerwas a responseto unexpected dataweaknessratherthan something initiallyplanned. Scenario2:Growthstartstoslowfromcurrentlevels. In recent years,the buoyant performance for risk assets has been sustained by averypositivemacro backdrop.But if that resilience falters and growth slows,thenthe underpinning for risk assets would be removed. Thisdoesn'trequire a recession.There are severalepisodes inrecent historywhena growth slowdown without arecession hasled to a clear adjustmentinthepriceofriskassets.Afterall,marketsareforward-looking,andiftherapidgrowthpricedin doesn't materialise, then that will require a repricing. A good case study is what happened in 2015-16. Concerns about globalgrowth were mounting, including around a hard landing in China.Moreover,theUS was also experiencingadecentgrowthslowdownthatledto repeatedforecastdowngradesfromtheconsensus.As a result,theS&P500sawacoupleofclearcorrectionsinlate-2015,andthenearly2016. Another exampleis the 2022 episode. Similarly backthen, theUS