The main points of the allocation meeting on October 21, 2026
The sell-off in AI and chip stocks spread from the United States to Asia last week. Concerns over debt-financed AI infrastructure intensified as Nvidia-backed CoreWeave lost about a quarter of its market value during the week. In the United States, the Nasdaq fell 4.5% for the week, and South Korea’s KOSPI posted its worst week since October 2008.
U.S. inflation came in above expectations, but the equity sell-off drove demand for government bonds. September consumer prices rose 3.7% year-over-year, and core inflation came in at 2.6%, both above expectations. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.33% after the inflation data but ended the week at around 5.09% as investors sought safe havens. The probability of an October rate hike fell to around 17% after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gave no signal of the next rate decision. Brent crude rose 4.9% for the week to USD 109.86 per barrel on Middle East supply risks.
The coming weeks feature major tech earnings and rate decisions from the Fed and the ECB. Meta, Tesla, IBM, Texas Instruments, Lam Research and SAP report on Wednesday, October 21, and the flash PMIs for October are released on Friday, October 23. Microsoft and Alphabet report on October 28 and Amazon on October 29. The Fed meets on October 27–28, and the ECB announces its rate decision on October 29. The earnings season has got off to a strong start, and we expect results for the season to be very strong in the United States, Asia and Europe.
We overweight equities and underweight money markets.Within equities, we overweight emerging market equities, underweight European equities, and remain neutral elsewhere. In fixed income investments, we overweight high yield corporate bonds and underweight government bonds, while remaining neutral on emerging market bonds and investment grade corporate bonds.