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“Back up the truck and buy, buy, buy.”
That was the advice from Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, who sent a rousing note to clients late Thursday, on the heels of trade optimism that is lifting global equities at the week’s end and a decisive election outcome in the U.K. “All over the world, markets are falling love. Buy it. Buy it all,” reads the headline of that note.
Rupkey said a pair of geopolitical risks — an elusive U.S.-China trade deal and yearslong wrangling over Brexit — “thought to be strangling world economic growth” incredibly look to be getting resolved in a “big, big way.”
“There is some smoke and mirrors here, but it looks like this is the time for investors around the world to throw months of caution to the winds and take risk off the table, and they are, buying stocks and selling bonds with abandon, as the economic outlook brightens and central banks shelve their plans to cut interest rates further,” he writes.
Investors were waiting for more news on a trade deal after reports surfaced Thursday that the U.S. could trim existing import tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as delaying those set to kick in on Sunday. Notably though, China has remained silent on any deal progress in the wake of those developments.
Fewer question markets were hanging over U.K. politics, for the first time in more than two years as Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party cruised to victory and with a strong majority in Parliament may now “get Brexit done,” as he pledged. Questions over Brexit have been cited as a lingering headwind for investors globally.
Read: Why Wall Street’s most bullish strategist says his S&P 500 forecast is probably too low
Thursday’s strong session for Wall Street stocks was morphing into another upbeat session for Friday, as Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00, +0.38% rose over 100 points. Asian stocks rallied, with a 2.5% gain for the Nikkei 225 index and Europe’s Stoxx 600 SXXP, +1.48% headed for its best one-day session since early October, with a gain of 1.5%.
Rupkey says investors piling into stocks will be armed with a 2020 outlook that “looks better than it has in months,” as he thinks the U.S. manufacturing recession possibly closer to ending that beginning. Equally, he thinks the world economic outlook looks good for next year and beyond.
“Take risk off the table as a concern to be hedged. There is no risk,” he writes. “Bet on it.”
