The first half of the year is what happens when Wall Street predicts a recession that doesn’t materialize: Exuberant upside surprise and massive valuation lift. But while today’s markets remain doggedly optimistic, forward-looking indicators are forecasting headwinds in the near future.
In this episode of the 3D Report, Chief Investment Officer of Chiron Funds Ryan Caldwell and Chief U.S. Economist Lara Rhame dive into where markets are at the end of Q2 and where key indicators suggest they’re headed.
Transcript excerpt:
Ryan Caldwell (00:00:01):
This is the 3D Report, a podcast from FS Investments and Chiron. I’m your host, Ryan Caldwell. Welcome to the FS Chiron third quarter 3D Report podcast with our special guest, Lara Rhame.
Lara Rhame (00:00:34):
Good morning.
Ryan Caldwell (00:00:35):
Lara, how are you?
Lara Rhame (00:00:37):
I’m great. It’s the day after the FOMC meeting and it’s the peak of summer and there’s nothing that I’d rather do than try to clarify the swirl of what’s happening right now. And we need to flush it all out, so—
Ryan Caldwell (00:00:58):
By the way, I love summer solstice, so this is great. And I agree, I did say to Lara before we kicked off, what a perfect day to do this podcast because we had GDP, the Fed was yesterday, earnings is basically over for the most part—yeah. You got the ballast of them last night. So, what a wonderful time to discuss this brilliant piece of writing.
One of the things I will say to our listeners: I’m a terrible writer. Like, I know I’m a horrific writer. I should not write anything. Lara is an amazing writer, and we laugh about this all the time because she does an incredible job of taking really complex stuff and like making it digestible.
Because she has to. She doesn’t obviously just work with us at Chiron—she deals with all of our products. So in your seat you have this really hard job of like, “I have to touch on all these points, but like, I have to do it in a way that’s connective.” So she’s a really good writer. Long story short, listener, she’s an awesome writer.
So what I thought I would do is, instead of talking about my less-than-par writing in the 3D report (which again, at some point we’ll get out of the bowels of FSS to our listeners), I thought what we would do, Lara, is maybe go through this excellent piece that you wrote—titled Sailing Into the Slowdown—which again, I think from a timing perspective, just couldn’t be more, more topical given where the markets are.