MARKET OVERVIEW Market sentiment over the month was shaped by a persistent tension between slowing growth and residual inflation, compounded by political uncertainty and rapid structural change in key industries. Investors moved back and forth between risk-on and risk-off positioning as incoming data, often delayed or partial, undermined confidence in traditional macro signals. The prolonged U.S. government shutdown became a material factor in its own right, disrupting transportation,...

November Bottom Up IERP The Implied Equity Risk Premium (“IERP”) is commonly estimated using methodologies similar to the internal rate of return in project finance or the yield to maturity of a fixed income instrument. At the aggregate market level, the IERP is understood as a market capitalization weighted average of the IERPs of the individual securities that comprise the index. This framework permits the cross validation of top down IERP estimates by reference to bottom up calculations...

MARKET OVERVIEW October opened under intense macroeconomic uncertainty as the U.S. federal government entered a shutdown at 12:01 a.m. on October 1. With roughly 800,000 government workers furloughed, the shutdown immediately threatened consumer spending and federal services, and it also delayed critical economic releases including monthly jobs and inflation data, reducing market visibility and policymaker clarity. Historically, prolonged shutdowns drag GDP, and early analysis this month...