Investment

January General Markets Comments

by Pierre Mouton

January General Markets Comments

“Knock on Wood” – Eddie Floyd, 1966.

This time it’s for real: many major indices have broken to the upside, touched all-time highs, or reached levels unseen for years during the month of January: the S&P 500, the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq 100 (but curiously not the Composite), the DAX and the CAC, among others, hit their historical highs, while the Topix has now its 1990 record in sight (still 13% to go, though) and the FTSEMIB is as high as it was in 2008, before the GFC. This rosy picture nevertheless gets a tad sober because of the Chinese CSI300, which, contrarily to the aforementioned indices, broke to the downside and is now 46% lower than its 2021 record. The Chinese rout dragged the broad MSCI Emerging Markets down 4.2%, just for January. Despite mixed returns recorded by the Magnificent Seven, Growth embarked 2024 the way it sailed during 2023, strongly and outpacing Value by 2.3%.

For once, fixed-income markets were relatively calm, with the US and the German 10 year yields barely up, but currencies and commodities had quite a volatile start of the year: the dollar rose 1.7% versus the euro, 3.8% versus the Yen and 1% versus the Renminbi, while Oil added 5.9% (buoyed by renewed tensions in the Red Sea as well as a possibly stronger global GDP growth, as confirmed by the IMF) and Gold receded by 1.1%.

“So goes January, so goes the year” says an old Wall Street quip; let’s then “Knock on Wood”, to paraphrase Eddie Floyd, and hope this proves true in 2024, with new highs in sight!

 

 

 

 

Past performance is not indicative of future results. The views, strategies and financial instruments described in this document may not be suitable for all investors. Opinions expressed are current opinions as of date(s) appearing in this material only. References to market or composite indices, benchmarks or other measures of relative market performance over a specified period of time are provided for your information only. NS PARTNERS SA provides no warranty and makes no representation of any kind whatsoever regarding the accuracy and completeness of any data, including financial market data or other financial instruments referred to in this general comment. This document does not constitute an offer or solicitation to any person in any jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation is not authorized or to any person to whom it would be unlawful to make such offer or solicitation. Any reference in this document to specific securities and issuers are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be interpreted as recommendations to purchase or sell those securities. References in this document to investment funds that have not been registered with the FINMA cannot be distributed in or from Switzerland except to certain categories of eligible investors. Some of the entities of the NS Partners Group or its clients may hold a position in the financial instruments of any issuer discussed herein, or act as advisor to any such issuer. Additional information is available on request. © NS Partners Group

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Antonio Mira joined NS Partners in 2006 as Group Chief Financial Officer. He heads the corporate functions and is involved in coordinating and implementing the decisions of the Executive Committee.
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