Before You Book That Vacation, JPM Warns Multiple Spoilers Are Converging In November

One week ago, Jan Loeys – the person who wrote “The JPMorgan View” for 15 years – announced his exit, as he transitioned from tactical asset allocation to longer-term strategy, and that he would be handing over the authorship to John Normand, and soon Nikos Panigirtzoglou and Marko Kolanovic, but not before summarizing what he has learned in 30 years of investing in a must-read bulletin which he published last week.
In any case, this weekend it was Normand’s turn to regale JPM’s countless retail and institutional clients with a preview of the upcoming key “spoilers” which according to Normand boil down to 3: a reality check on US tax reform, weaker-than-expected China data, and a Russian rethink on extending oil cuts. Not surprisingly, JPM focuses on the first issue, because as Norman writes, “tax overhaul seems the most complicated market driver given its fluid composition and tortuous legislative process.”
By contrast, China’s slowdown looks familiar and was already part of our economists’ baseline; hence, our neutral recommendation on base metals ex aluminum. The November 30th oil producers’ summit is not a drop-dead date for extending their year-old agreement, but we took profits anyway on a long Brent trade last week because oil’s geopolitical premium looked excessive.
For those curious what the largest US bank thinks will be dominant events over the balance of the month, here it is straight from the horse’s mouth.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 19, 2017.