Global Perspectives

External forces drove markets and led to higher volatility across commodities and equities.

Back in January, Blackstone said that real estate values were bottoming and that they expected deal activity to pick up in 2024. True to its word, Blackstone recently announced a $10 billion deal to take Apartment Income REIT (NYSE: AIRC) private. In addition, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (or BREIT) saw its share buyback request decline for March—down 17% from February and a whopping 85% from a year earlier, although redemption levels remain elevated.

Favorable economic conditions and strong earnings momentum could underpin a broadening rally and continued strength in U.S. equities.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke at a forum in Washington this week, cautioning that persistent inflation and a strong U.S. economy will likely delay any Fed rate cuts until later this year.

The story of the fixed income markets over the past six months is broadly one of spreads tightening across the board as funds flow back into bonds.

Both U.S. equities and bonds fell on hot inflation, but late in the week, bonds recovered somewhat as geopolitical tensions heightened.

March’s inflation print showed that the disinflation trend remains quite bumpy.

Mixed economic data and less urgent rate cut talk from the Fed drove U.S. equities and bonds down for the week.

Strong economic data continues to come out of the U.S. Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data showing that the labor market added 303,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in March, far exceeding expectations of 214,000.

Ray Dalio recently released a piece titled “To Answer the Question of Why I Invest in China."