The brutal rout in stocks this month was a ‘dress rehearsal’ for what’s to come, JPMorgan says
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Last week’s market sell-off was potentially just a taste of what’s to come, JPMorgan says.
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Growth concerns will likely be the next big trigger, analysts said.
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The market this week is back in the Goldilocks zone after a handful of encouraging data points.
The abrupt sell-off that sparked the stock market’s worst loss in two years might have been a preview of what’s to come, according to JPMorgan.
Analysts at the bank said the combined worries of decelerating economic growth and the carry trade unwind were too much for the market to handle at once.
Since then, though, the stock market has clawed back all of its losses and found itself basking in the glow of positive economic updates this week, leading many on Wall Street to conclude the event was an overreaction to a momentary blip in the data.
“Many market participants are dismissing the recent blowup of various crowded trades as a fluke or flash crash, but we see it as more of a dress rehearsal for what’s to come,” JPMorgan analysts said in a Thursday note.
The sell-off this month came as US unemployment jumped, and accelerated as the Japanese market sank 12.4% in its biggest fall since “Black Monday” in 1987. An unwind of the so-called yen carry emerged as the big culprit rocking global equities.
Investors had borrowed yen at low rates in Japan for the last two years, leaving them flailing and rushing to sell to meet margin calls after the Bank of Japan’s surprise rate hike.
While massive, the analysts predict that carry trade concerns won’t be the trigger of future volatility, as many investors aren’t likely to rush back into the strategy after getting caught off-guard this month.
“The carry trades could eventually become a problem again, but with investors getting burned, not everyone will be reinstating these trades, so it ought to be more difficult to hit the old highs,” the analysts said.
“Instead, we see the reemergence growth risk as the likely trigger,” they added.
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