Insights

"If you're a long-term investor, it matters less what's happening to the markets as a whole, and matters more what you can find bottom up. At the end of the day, we're not betting on being all into markets. We're selectively buying into markets around the world and I think that's the key distinction."

As has been the case through much of the post-crisis period, investors in the third quarter generally saw bad news as good news: Signs of a slowing economy were deemed benign because they were likely to provoke greater accommodation from the Fed.

The move down in long-term interest rates in recent quarters has shed an ominous light. We’ve seen the yield curve invert in the United States, and there is evidence of softening in the underlying economy. The manufacturing sector has been weak globally, and momentum in the service sector has started to fade.

At First Eagle, we’ve long held that the United States does not have a monopoly on good companies. While we think most market participants would agree with this sentiment, asset allocation data suggest US investors in general continue to be significantly underexposed to international equities relative to their share of the global opportunity set.

As we assess the broader economic backdrop, we see plenty of worries. The US-China trade dispute remains tense, and there are signs that it has slowed global economic growth. Employment in the United States has been at a multi-decade high, but it may, potentially, have peaked.

Though the current business cycle—the longest in US history—is showing signs of age, the potential timing of and impetus for its end remain uncertain.

The long-simmering trade dispute between the US and China has intensified in recent days.