JPMorgan's Kolanovic gets even more underweight stocks as overtightening risk rises

Published Wed, Jan 18 20236:48 AM EST

JPMorgan's top market strategist Marko Kolanovic trimmed his allocation to equities further on concern the stock market is getting too optimistic about a economic soft landing by the Federal Reserve. Kolanovic, who gained a following for calling the stock market rebound during the pandemic in 2020, remains bullish on commodities. Within global equities, he is overweight China/emerging markets stocks on the reduction of Covid restrictions. But, he's overall negative on global stocks, especially those in the United States. "We remain cautious on risk assets and are reluctant to chase the past weeks' rally as recession and overtightening risks remain high, and we believe that a lot of good news is already in the price in terms of inflation moderation or the potential for a soft landing," Kolanovic and his team in a note Tuesday. "While signs of declining inflation pressures are in principle positive, ongoing tightness in labor markets is likely to put pressure on margins, and may cause central banks to tighten further than markets expect." Here's the asset allocation model from the bank now: Equities: Underweight by 3% (from 2% underweight) Govt. Bonds: Underweight by 5% (from 8% underweight) Corp. Bonds: Overweight by 2% (from 4% overweight) Commodities: Overweight by 6% (Unchanged from prior) Cash: 0% or equal benchmark weighting (from 0%) Within equities, JPMorgan has a 5% overweighting to emerging markets. Kolanovic was too bullish heading into 2022 but got cautious during last year on concern inflation would force the Fed to tighten further then investors expect. Despite being too optimistic during most of last year, the strategist said this asset allocation model still beat its benchmark. "Strong gains over the past year on our government bond UW, our commodity OW, our long dollar bias and our UW in credit as a hedge to our equity OW, more than offset the drag from our equity OW in the first nine months of 2022," stated the note. — CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed reporting.