Moz Afzal will present EFG’s top-ten convictions for 2024, providing insight into the expected events to take place in the year ahead:
- World economy on course for a soft landing: Our most likely scenario is for a soft landing for the world economy in 2024. Global economic growth of around 2.5%-3% is likely, with emerging and developing economies growing faster than advanced economies.
- Productivity gains: US productivity could benefit from a tech-driven productivity renaissance in 2024. AI could boost labour productivity, which we think – combined with population growth – would lead to a maintained GDP growth of around 2% p.a. in the US.
- Fiscal fragility: Governments around the world are burdened with large budget deficits and high levels of debt. This is a problem in the US in particular, where there is a structural imbalance between revenues and spending, which will continue in 2024.
- Political turbulence: More than half of the world’s population lives in countries that will hold national elections in 2024. The US elections – with the possibility of Donald Trump staging a return to the White House – will attract the most attention and are likely to have the most far-reaching consequences.
- Demography is destiny: It has often been said that demographics are destiny. For any economy, the size of its population, its age distribution and how many people are working are key drivers of economic progress and of deflationary forces.
- Weight loss and consumer staples: The popularity of weight loss drugs could surge in 2024. This market has huge potential but its impact on the consumer staples sector has been exaggerated.
- Clean energy transition: The transition from fossil fuels to clean energy remains of the utmost importance but progress stalled in 2023. We see it regaining lost momentum in 2024.
- Undervalued currencies recover: The long upward trend in the US dollar’s valuation on its nominal and real exchange rate indices came to an end in around late 2022. We expect undervalued currencies, notably the yen, to recover in 2024.
- Bond opportunities: We see interesting opportunities in bond markets for 2024: bonds with three-to-five year maturities in government and investment grade corporate debt, inflation-linked bonds and selected convertible bonds.
- Favour small cap stocks: Small cap stocks have historically tended to produce higher returns than large cap stocks over time – this trend in our view is likely to reassert itself.
Our EFG Harris Allday investment managers will be available to discuss the latest expected trends following the presentation. Drinks and seasonal canapes will be provided throughout the evening.
