The Fed’s dilemma: overtightening versus overheating.

One of the potential rude awakenings that we advised investors to prepare for in our recent Secular Outlook is a surprising surge of productivity growth over the next several years.

We expect China’s real estate balloon to deflate slowly given inventory is close to record lows and the government has plenty of room for policy relaxation.

We may be witnessing an important turning point: Ten years after the financial crisis, the global economy and financial markets look set to enter a new era of potentially radical change.

With the number of potential catalysts in the next month or so, we could see trade risk escalate.

We believe the trend to simplify complex corporate structures strengthens the case for investing in MLPs and in midstream energy more broadly.

We believe 2018 may be the year that challenges preconceptions about the equity/inflation correlation, and the market’s reaction to April’s soft inflation readings seems to bear this out.

The ultimate impact will depend on Russia and OPEC’s responses to rising prices and tightening supplies.

Europe’s unconventional monetary policies and low levels of interest rates are likely to persist.

We expect the recent rise in oil prices to be a modest headwind to U.S. economic activity while supporting inflation.

The May statement emphasized the symmetry of the Fed’s 2% inflation target and indicated that the Fed’s baseline outlook remains for two or three additional interest rate hikes in 2018.