Daily roundup of research and analysis from The Globe and Mail’s market strategist Scott Barlow
Silence?
Citi strategist Chris Montagu’s Academic Research Digest included an interesting study on analyst delays in writing reports and what it means for stock values,
“This study develops a measure of analyst silence, measured as the length of time since the last report, and finds that it predicts future stock underperformance. Portfolios with low-silence outperform high-silence portfolios by nearly 1% per month after controlling for firm characteristics and various factor-adjusted return models. Silence is linked to more future bad news, negative earnings surprises, and delays the incorporation of bad information into prices, amplifying post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) and reducing short-term stock informativeness. Silence often reflects a deliberate choice (’strategic silence’) to withhold bad news rather than inattention, yet analysts still provide value through private monitoring that improves firms’ investment efficiency and curbs earnings management”
Lingering tariffs
Citi global strategist Nathan Sheets is still expecting a tariff-related global slowdown,
“The expectation of rising tariffs has prompted U.S. households and firms to frontload purchases of imported goods — As a result, U.S. imports have on average run well above 2024 levels. In tandem, exports of other countries have also been elevated. We see this as the main driver of the global economy’s resilience. But, more generally, the economy continues to show flexibility and a capacity to adjust to even sizable challenges. We anticipate that significantly more inflation pass-through is still to come — We estimate that consumers have borne only 30-40 per cent of the cost of the tariffs, with the remainder absorbed by the corporate sector. Firms aggressively accumulated inventories during H1, and this has given them scope to delay price increases. But that process is now playing through. Another surprise is that foreign exporters have absorbed only a negligible share of the tariffs … Global headline inflation is likely to remain well contained … Notably, rates are generally moving back toward neutral; most countries are not expected to move into meaningfully accommodative territory”
Time to ‘buckle up’
BofA Securities investment strategist Michael Hartnett’s weekly Flow Show report is titled Buckle Up this week,
“168 rate cuts past 12 months, bullish gold, crypto, stocks, themes (uranium, defense, rare earths, AI, blockchain; but strong US data says macro don’t need 2 Fed cuts by year-end…US$, yields, oil up…healthy correction stocks, crypto, gold so long as no disorderly unwind of consensus “short US$” trade (don’t want jump in DXY >102). Tale of the Tape: 2020s decade of higher inflation & rates…why extreme 25/25/25/25 stocks/bonds/cash/gold portfolio outperforming 60-40 portfolio year-to-date (16 per cent vs 10 per cent), pacing 60-40 decade-to-date The Biggest Picture: precious metals bull (silver up 56 per cent year-to-date) driven by inflationary 2020s policies (govt intervention, Fed independence, isolationism, immigration, indebtedness…), US$ debasement risk, return of bull market in “war” (US-China, EU-Russia); gold tactically “overbought” (Chart 2) but structurally “under-owned” (gold = 0.4 per cent of private client AUM, 2.4 per cent of institutional AUM); we stay long”
Bluesky post of the day
“.. Kimmel’s return was essentially an open-book test — one that Sinclair and Nexstar failed. .. they should consider whether their stubbornness could contribute to their own obsolescence.”
@opinion.bloomberg.com $NXST
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti…
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) September 26, 2025 at 6:28 AMDiversion
“Mysterious Object Screaming Toward Mars Is Huge and Far More Massive Than Scientists Thought, According to New Paper” – Futurism