(New York)

The world’s leader in managing the ultra-wealthy’s money says that the rich are bracing themselves for a big selloff in 2020. The firm’s clients hold near record level of capital in cash—25%—and think the stock market is going to have real trouble next year. The two major concerns occupying the minds of the ultra wealthy are the US-China trade war and the 2020 US presidential election. The bank got quantitative results on the topic from a recent survey, which received 3,400 responses.

FINSUM: Nobody knows how the market will do next year, and it is never hard to find people that are bearish. This looks like the perfect wall of worry for stocks to climb.

(New York)

Bank of America has just made a bold call on the direction of yields. The bank has sharply increased its forecasts for where bond yields will be at the end of the year. Its previous forecast for the ten-year was 1.25%, but it has just moved that up to 2%. It made similar adjustments to its forecast for German and British bonds. “Relative to our more pessimistic revision in August, the US and China are working to de-escalate trade tensions, no-deal Brexit risks have been banished for now, global data have started to stabilize, and central banks have shifted from dovish to neutral policy stances”.

FINSUM: Based on the change in mood amongst investors and central banks, this forecasted change makes total sense to us.

(New York)

After rumors circulating for weeks, Ladenburg and Advisor Group have jointly announced that they plan to merge. The new company will operate under the Advisor Group name and have over 11,000 advisors. None of the two companies nine broker-dealer subsidiaries will be merged, and advisors will continue their multi-party custody and clearing set up. The deal valued Ladenburg at $1.3 bn. One senior industry commentator said “It’s a very bold transaction that could create a major new player overnight that can go toe to toe with the other biggest firms in the independent space in terms of scale and resources”.

FINSUM: With margins so low across the IBD industry, scale is the only way to improve profitability. We expect the wave of deals to continue.

(Hong Kong)

Hong Kong police have warned that the city is on the brink of collapse. A police shooting of a protester on Monday has sparked a huge wave of renewed protests that have blocked roadways and caused chaos. “Over the past two days, our society has been pushed to the brink of a total breakdown as rioters went on a rampage”. The protests have turned increasingly violent in recent days as 128 were hospitalized with injuries on Monday.

FINSUM: This has no end in sight, and with tension increasing, so too are the odds that it somehow becomes wrapped up in the US-China trade war.

(New York)

Goodbye bearishness, hello risk-on. JP Morgan took a pivot from the rest of the Wall Street research machine today and took some bold steps in its allocation recommendations. The bank said that investors should take money out of gold and other risk averse assets, like government bonds, and put it into risk assets like stocks. The bank’s strategy team said “We maintain a significant and incrementally larger tilt in our model portfolio towards risky assets, based on signs of a cyclical recovery, easing geopolitical tensions, synchronized monetary easing, and defensive investor positioning across asset classes”.

FINSUM: The clouds do seem to be parting a bit, but there are still a lot of x factors—which is exactly the reason this could turn out to be a very good call.