The Middle East conflict, while first and foremost a human tragedy, also represents an energy supply shock with potentially significant implications for global growth. In a new paper, Head of Global Sovereign, Inflation and Rates, Cedric Scholtes presents a framework for analysing the war’s fixed income investment implications.
Confronted with ongoing geopolitical tensions, we believe Asia’s fundamental strengths should underpin the resilience of its fixed income markets. Supported by strong current account balances and the support of the AI capex cycle, many Asian countries look set to weather the current storm relatively well compared to prior crises.
“The stagflationary impulse from the conflict will reshape the growth and inflation risk trade-off, creating a policy dilemma for central banks globally. Overall, we expect central banks to postpone easing, but not to reverse it, a wait-and-see stance seems plausible and appropriate.”