2024 Global Outlook

“2024 Outlook: Investors Are Turning Off Auto-Pilot”

Episode Description

2023 has seen high volatility across global markets driven by high interest rates, bank failures and a surge in bond yields. So, after a tumultuous 2023, what can investors expect in 2024?

Alex Brazier, Deputy Head of The BlackRock Investment Institute, joins host Oscar Pulido to discuss the Outlook for 2024. Alex will help us understand the structural shift to a new macro regime and explain how investors can consider the 5 mega forces that the BlackRock Investment Institute sees as being the key drivers of the new regime.

Sources: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - Chart Book: Tracking the Recovery From the Pandemic Recession Dec 4^th 2023; BlackRock Investment Institute 2024 Outlook

Written Disclosures in Episode Description:

This content is for informational purposes only and is not an offer or a solicitation. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the listener.

For full disclosures go to Blackrock.com/corporate/compliance/bid-disclosures

TRANSCRIPT:

<<THEME MUSIC>>

Oscar Pulido: Welcome to The Bid, where we break down what's happening in the markets and explore the forces changing the economy and finance. I'm your host, Oscar Pulido.

2023 has seen high volatility across global markets driven by high interest rates, bank failures and a surge in bond yields. The financial landscape witnessed a year colored by nuances and unexpected turns. Despite initial optimism, the year unveiled challenges that reverberated across global markets. Central banks grappled with persistent inflationary pressures amidst structural constraints, while investors sought new opportunities amid heightened market volatility. So, after a tumultuous 2023, what can investors expect in 2024?

Alex Brazier: This is a macro environment that's more complex and interesting, perhaps, than anything we've had in the last 20 years. There are now rewards for getting the calls right and for being precise, selective, and agile in portfolios. And that's a big contrast to the last twenty years. So, it's time to grab the wheel!

Oscar Pulido: I’m pleased to welcome back Alex Brazier, Deputy Head of The BlackRock Investment Institute to help us look ahead to a new year. The BlackRock Investment Institute has just released its 2024 Outlook and Alex will give us an overview, help us understand the structural shift to a new macro regime and explain how investors can consider the 5 mega forces that the BlackRock Investment Institute sees as being the key drivers of the new regime.

Alex, welcome.

Alex Brazier: Hello again, Oscar. Thanks for having me back.

Oscar Pulido: So, Alex, as we near the end of 2023, a year that has felt like quite a rollercoaster ride, how are you feeling as you look ahead to a new year?

Alex Brazier: Well, in short, excited! And this is, notable. It's rare for an economist like me to be excited, that's why I make a point of it. Why excited? Well, this is a macro environment that's more complex and interesting, perhaps, than anything we've had in the last 20 years. So, in some respects, it's making me feel young again but more importantly, it's an environment where there are now rewards for getting the calls right and for being precise, selective, and agile in portfolios. And that's a big contrast to the last twenty years where broad, static, asset class exposures worked about as well as anything else. So, the way I think of it now is the economic and investment road is actually a very bumpy and windy one. And that means there are big rewards for good, agile drivers to outperform others, rather than driving along the straight highway we've been on for the last 20 years. So, in the words of The Outlook, it's time to grab the wheel.

Oscar Pulido: I think you are a pretty upbeat guy in general, but I can sense that extra level of optimism in your voice. And as you said, you ae an economist so tell us more about the global economy as we finish 2023 and perhaps that will help us understand the excitement you feel going into next year.

Alex Brazier: Well, the macro environment isn't straightforward, which is actually what makes this an interesting time. Now, the good news is, as we end the year, we see inflation coming down on both sides of the Atlantic, in the US and in Europe. And that's happening as the mismatches that arose as a result of the pandemic, we were all spending a lot on goods and not on services, for example, they're all unwinding.

And in Europe, the energy shock is unwinding too. So, inflation's coming down. That means central bank policy rates have probably peaked as a result. that's all good, but then take a step back and look at the broader context, because actually the context is everything here. And there are three aspects of this macro picture that are really quite interesting.

The first is that we seem to be on a weaker trend growth path. Before the pandemic, the US economy typically was growing at around about 2.5% a year. Since the pandemic, on average, it's been growing at about 1.7% percent a year. Now, employment growth has been pretty strong recently, but that's because it's been catching up with the restart of activity.

And overall, over the last three years, that's been quite muted as well. We've got weak output growth, weak employment growth, and yet we haven't really got unemployment or slack in the economy. And that's because the workforce is growing less quickly now as the population ages. That's telling us that the economy can't actually grow faster than this new muted rate without resurgent inflation. So, the first kind of really interesting aspect of the macro regime, the really important piece of context, is that trend growth is somewhat lower than it was pre pandemic. The second really important piece of context is it's going to take higher interest rates than we were used to in the past for central banks to keep growth muted. And that's because they're pushing against fiscal policy, which has become looser and is stimulating the economy, and they're leaning against that, and they've got to lean down to keep growth muted. Interest rates probably coming down at some point next year, but not to where they used to be. So, weaker growth, higher interest rates.

And then the third important piece of context is that in this environment of geopolitical tensions and the energy transition, we do expect future bouts of inflation. So, this bout of inflation going away, but we're likely to get future bouts too- we don't know when or precisely what will cause them. But this is the opposite of the past 20 years when geopolitical integration of supply chains, all repeatedly pulled inflation down. And now we're turning that on its head. And central banks are going to be squashing inflation down over time, with higher rates, rather than trying to push it up over time with lower rates.

So weaker growth, structurally higher rates, and more volatility, and that's what makes this road really windy and bumpy. And it's a road where investors who can be precise, selective, and drive in an agile way can actually outperform.

Oscar Pulido: So, from what you’re saying it sounds like inflation and interest rates are trending down but probably not to the levels we were accustomed to for the last 20 years. You also talked about the need to grab the wheel in this new macro environment. Sticking with this driving analogy, how can investors think about avoiding the bumps or maybe the ‘potholes’ in 2024?

Alex Brazier: Well, this is the first theme of the Outlook that we're publishing now, and that's about managing macro risk. This isn't a road for the autopilot or for taking unintended macro risks, you have to be very deliberate about macro risks in this environment and navigate them skillfully. I would just highlight two in particular that we're paying attention to.

The first in fixed income markets is really the US fiscal position. Because in this regime of muted growth, higher interest rates, and bigger government deficits, put that together, it means that public debt, relative to the size of the economy, is going to be growing. It's on an unsustainable path, and that actually raises the prospect of higher inflation in the future.

That makes us more precise in our fixed income exposures, tilting towards short and medium-term bonds, the belly of the curve, rather than very long-term bonds. So that's one issue that needs careful navigating.

The second one that needs careful navigating is that it's not clear that all broad asset classes have really adjusted to this regime of persistently higher policy rates than we were used to in the past. In other words, expected returns adjusted for risk are not equivalently higher on all assets as they are on cash. So, we're careful with broad static asset class exposures, but that is where the opportunity lies to get selective and beat the benchmarks.

Oscar Pulido: Ok so those sound like a few of the trickier aspects that investors need to consider as they manage their portfolios. But on the flip side, what is making you excited? Where are the opportunities that investors can look to take advantage of?

Alex Brazier: I think the flip side of this difficulty with broad static asset class exposures is that now there's an opportunity that we haven't had for 20 years to really outperform those broad static exposures by being selective and agile in approach. You look back at the past 20 years, investment that was agile and selective wasn't really rewarded because broad static exposures did about as well as anything else. But now, because we've got this weaker growth, higher rate, more volatile regime, we don't expect the sustained bull markets of the past. Sure, there'll be periods when everything goes up, but it won't be sustained like it was in the last 20 years. And so, the complexity of the macro picture means there's much more dispersion of expectations on a pricing of assets.

And that means there are real rewards now for being very selective and precise and in this outlook that we're publishing we highlight potential gains in portfolios from tilting allocations across asset classes depending on how they're valued right now. For example, I've already mentioned that we tilt towards shorter and medium-term duration bonds rather than longer duration. We're tilting towards hard currency emerging market bonds and mortgage-backed securities in the U. S. rather than developed market credit. That's because we see spreads as more attractive on those. And we're tilting towards equities in Japan versus Europe on account of the differing fundamentals not really being reflected yet in market prices.

So, opportunities from being very selective and granular across asset classes but also opportunities to get really precise and granular within asset classes too. And we highlight in the Outlook, for example, the idea of being underweight the broad U. S. equity index and using that space in portfolios to focus on U. S. equities that are set to take advantage of AI to lower costs, boost revenues, in the future. And I know you've talked a lot on this podcast about AI. So, it's absolutely not the case that complex, difficult macro environment means we think we should sit and wait. It is what it is. And we're embracing the fact that the road ahead is windy and bumpy and interesting, and using precise, agile exposures to outperform.

Oscar Pulido: Yes, as you mentioned we’ve had some interesting conversations here on The Bid about AI, and I expect we will continue to do so in 2024. In fact when we’ve discussed AI, we’ve described it as one of five megaforces reshaping the investment landscape so tell us about the role of the other megaforces in portfolios and how those might impact markets in 2024?

Alex Brazier: Sure, and I think these are things we see as big structural shifts in economies, and we see them actually as drivers of return differences within asset classes. They're a way in which to get selective about your exposures within asset classes. Now in addition to AI, there are four others that we're monitoring particularly closely.

The first of those is the reshaping of the financial landscape, especially in the United States. Banks are under pressure from increasing regulation and greater competition now for deposits. And so, bank credit is likely to become more expensive, less available. That's going to be a differentiator across banks who can adjust to this reality, but it's also going to create opportunities, for example, in private credit where we see ongoing demand from borrowers who are looking to replace tighter bank credit.

The second megaforce we're looking at is demographic change. I mentioned this earlier in the context of weaker trend growth in the United States. It's also true of other advanced economies and, importantly, China. But it's also a potential driver of sectoral prospects in economies, for example, around healthcare.

And it's also a driver of different growth prospects across economies, because not all economies now have ageing populations. There are some economies still with very quickly growing populations, and it's important to take that into account.

The third megaforce we're looking at is geopolitical fragmentation. And that's interesting because it's spurring industrial policy and a rewiring of supply chains. And that's something we use to get precise within portfolios to try and find securities that will outperform.

And then finally, we're looking, of course, at the transition to reduce carbon emissions, which, as we know, is driving a big shift in the energy mix, but it's also now creating demands for solutions to resilience a changing climate and weather events. You talked a lot about this, I think, a couple of weeks ago with Helen on the last podcast. So, four or five in total, with AI, big mega forces that we see really reshaping economies and not in all cases yet fully reflected in market prices and therefore creating interesting investment opportunities for precise exposures within asset classes.

Oscar Pulido: So, Alex, a winding and bumpy road ahead, but exciting terrain for those agile drivers you described earlier. Maybe just one final question, which is if you had to briefly sum up your outlook for 2024, what will you be telling investors?

Alex Brazier: Well, it's an environment where money can be put to work, but it can't be done by putting on the autopilot on a straight highway. It's a bumpy, windy road, as you say, so grab the wheel, drive skillfully, drive precisely, and drive in an agile way, and have a great holiday season.

Oscar Pulido: Grab your driving gloves for sure and thinking back to all your comments, it sounds like in 2024, we better be ready to shift gears! Alex, thank you so much for joining us on The Bid, it’s a pleasure as always. Wishing you a great holiday season as well.

Alex Brazier: Thanks so much.

Oscar Pulido: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Bid, if you’ve enjoyed this episode check out our recent episode that Alex mentioned featuring Helen Lees-Jones entitled “Low-Carbon Transition Investing 101” and find out how investors are taking advantage of the energy transition in their portfolios.

<<THEME MUSIC>>

<<SPOKEN DISCLOSURES>>

This content is for informational purposes only and is not an offer or a solicitation. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the listener.

For full disclosures go to Blackrock.com/corporate/compliance/bid-disclosures

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Title: Midyear Outlook - New Regime, New Opportunities

Episode Description:

As we look ahead to the second half of 2023, what are the emerging trends investors should be watching and what opportunities might these factors present? Alex Brazier, Deputy Head of the BlackRock Investment Institute helps us look ahead to the rest of the year.

Written disclosures in each podcast platform and each episode description:

This material is intended for information purposes only, and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any securities, funds or strategies to any person in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The opinions expressed are as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the reader. Investing involves risks. BlackRock does and may seek to do business with companies covered in this podcast. As a result, readers should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this podcast.

In the U.S. and Canada, this material is intended for public distribution.

©2023 BlackRock, Inc. All Rights Reserved. BLACKROCK is a registered trademark of BlackRock, Inc. All other trademarks are those of their respective owners. 

TRANSCRIPT

<<THEME MUSIC>>

Oscar Pulido: Welcome to The Bid, where we break down what's happening in the markets and explore the forces changing the economy and finance. I'm your host, Oscar Pulido.

The first half of 2023 has seen its fair share of headlines and volatility across global markets, including higher interest rates, bank failures, and a dramatic US debt ceiling moment.

As we look ahead to the second half of 2023, what are the emerging trends investors should be watching and what opportunities might these factors present?

I'm pleased to welcome back Alex Brazier, Deputy Head of the BlackRock Investment Institute to help us look ahead to the rest of the year. Alex, welcome to The Bid.

Alex Brazier: Thanks Oscar for having me back.

Oscar Pulido: Well, Alex, you are back. In fact the last time we talked, we were discussing the relief that markets were feeling from the U.S. Debt ceiling agreement, and you mentioned that there was an upcoming investor Outlook forum taking place at BlackRock's headquarters in London. So perhaps, we can start with some takeaways from that forum.

Alex Brazier: Yeah thanks, it's been a busy few weeks and as you say, we did assemble, BlackRock's most senior investors, in London two weeks ago now for two days of intense discussion. And really I think the top line conclusion I took from that is a wide acceptance that we're in a new regime, a new macro and market regime, that brings new and different investment opportunities. So this new regime is something we've been talking about for a long time, it's actually playing out now. We had 30 years of stability where central banks always came to the rescue whenever anything looked to be heading south in our economies, and we had sustained bull markets. And now we've seen major developed markets flirt with recession, and yet central banks have raising rates and certainly holding tight with their policies.

So that's the new regime playing out from a macro perspective, but that's really not a council of despair. And the thing I took away from our meetings in London the other week is that, far from it, the opportunities may be different, but they are no less than they used to be. So, sure, this is an environment where, simple static portfolios at the broad asset class level won't any longer be the best you can do, and it's not an environment really for taking big macro risks when central banks aren't coming to the rescue.

 The opportunities now come from zooming in being precise, finding the disconnects in the way markets are pricing some of the volatility, finding relative value, and also from harnessing some of the mega forces- the big tectonic shifts in our economies that are playing out now.

So yeah, I took away it's a new regime. It's a different regime. It's playing out but actually that means there are new and exciting opportunities that are different from the past, but no less than the past.

Oscar Pulido: I love some of these terms that you mentioned, Alex. Zooming in, being more precise. I think you said mega forces and tectonic shifts. So it sounds like it was a lively debate in London to say the least. And we've talked about this new investment regime with your colleague Wei Lee a little bit earlier in the year.

So maybe just go into a little bit more detail about what we think this looks like when we say new investment regime and how this is playing out?

Alex Brazier: The big shift here as I say, is we're going from a world in which most major economies, their supply capacity was just growing steadily over time. And so the job of central banks was really just to keep stoking up growth and come to the rescue whenever growth threatened to head south. And that's the way they achieved their inflation targets.

So they had a structural easing bias. Rates were always below their neutral level. Central banks were always stoking things up, now we're moving to the opposite. And as I say, in develop developed markets, we've seen growth stall, Europe's had a recession as the energy shock has squeezed incomes. The US even on some measures, may have just about had one too, if you look at measures like gross domestic income alongside measures like gross domestic product.

And all of this is before the full effect of central bank actions come through- tightening financial conditions, tightening credit conditions- and yet central banks are not coming to the rescue with rate cuts. In fact, they're signaling further increases. Why is that? Well, it's cuz their economies are basically overheating despite having had recessions. And that's because economies aren't able to produce as much now without generating inflation because of things like labor supply problems and energy supply problems.

So central banks have gone from, having this sort of structural easing bias to having a structural tightening bias. They're constantly trying to hold back growth in order to get inflation down to their targets. So they're, they're holding tight, they're holding policy tight, and markets have been gradually adjusting to this. We've seen it in fixed income markets, for example, as bond markets have started to price in that, central banks won't be cutting rates this year, even as growth slows, they'll actually be keeping rates pretty high. The U.S. two year yields now up pretty significantly, and that's the market adjusting to the fact that central banks aren't coming to the rescue.

That does create challenges for risk assets. It means more volatility, means more growth, volatility, it means more earnings volatility means more equity volatility, and risk asset volatility, but... does also mean serious opportunities for income from particularly short dated bonds where yields have risen pretty sharply and increasingly emerging opportunities to lock in some of that income with longer duration too.

So this is a regime where there are challenges, sure, the macro regime creates more volatility, but also, central banks holding tight means higher yields means real opportunity for income in portfolios as well.

Oscar Pulido: Yeah, and it's interesting to hear the side by side. On the one hand you're saying there are big parts of the world that might be in recession, maybe you have to look closely at the data to really see it but by textbook definitionthey're experiencing a recession or certainly a slower growth environment.

You're saying there's gonna be more volatility, central banks are not coming to the rescue as they have in the past. But despite all of that you mentioned the opportunities are there. They're different, but they're no less. So where can investors look for those investment opportunities?

Alex Brazier: I think this is actually the big thing coming out of our discussions in London the other week. So the first is obviously that income is back with yields, higher central banks holding tight, there are opportunities now in portfolios to lock in some of that income.

Now, it's not a great environment for overweighting risk assets as a broad category in a portfolio, but nor is it an environment to bunker down and wait.

Partly because in this new regime, macro volatility is just something that's here to stay. It's a fact of the regime, so it's something to adjust to rather than wait to pass. The big thing is that we're not taking big macro risks in portfolios. We're just taking different risks in portfolios. and let me, give an example of a few here.

The first is that zooming in, within equities, there's an increasing population of stocks where investors are now compensated for some of the risks in the macro environment. And US equities, for example, remain the lion's share of our baseline portfolio. But there's also opportunity in zooming in further within developed market equities to tilt portfolios because we see opportunities, for example, in tilting equity exposures to towards Japan, where the macro pictures quite different to other developed markets.

The Bank of Japan is still in the business of ensuring inflation that actually gets up to its target rather than trying to squeeze it down like other developed market central banks. That means growth prospects are somewhat stronger there. We also see opportunities outside developed markets, tilting portfolios towards emerging market equities where many of the macro risks are actually better reflected in market prices.

And there's opportunities from zooming in within fixed income exposures as well. For example, towards US inflation linked bonds and away from European inflation linked bonds, given the ECBs even greater determination, we think, than the Fed to get inflation down to its 2% target. Now. All of that is just examples of how broad asset class exposures might not be the way to generate additional return in this environment, but by being precise, by zooming in to find these relative value opportunities within asset classes, actually there's real opportunities In the old regime where central banks were coming to the rescue, you didn't need to be particularly precise- broad macro exposures did the job as well as anything else in terms of generating investment return.

But now you can do a lot better by being precise and finding some of these relative value opportunities within the asset classes.

Oscar Pulido: And it's interesting you said don't wait for macro volatility to pass. it's here to stay, so adjust to it. And that gets me thinking that maybe investors tend to wanna wait for the coast to be clear and everything is calm and then they start looking for those investment opportunities but maybe by then it might be too late and markets have moved and you've highlighted some of the areas that they should be identifying. You also mentioned mega forces. How many are there and why are these important?

Alex Brazier: we're highlighting five,in our outlook. what do we mean by megaforce? we mean these sort of big tectonic shifts in the way the world economy works and the way economies work that are gonna have a big effect, not just at the macro level but also on which companies win out relative to others, so they're gonna be a big driver of returns. And again, this is part of the general theme of focusing less on the macro picture and more on what are the underlying forces and what winners are they gonna create? So a good example of that's in the first half of this year. Where one of these big forces, these mega forces, turned out to be as important as the Federal Reserve in driving the SNP 500. And that is, the growth of artificial intelligence.

Over the first half of the year, much of the US equity performance has been driven by a handful of stocks reflecting the realization, I think, of the potential of some forms of AI and in particular the need for semiconductors and other chips to enable that to happen. So it's a real example of how even in a difficult macro situation, some of these mega forces, these themes, can be much more important as a driver of return. And actually, as we say in the Outlook document, we think that artificial intelligence theme could actually have further to run too, because looking carefully at it, there's not just opportunities in some of the chip needs but also in the needs for data to actually really exploit the power of AI.

So people who are involved in putting data sets together, cleaning data, making it able to be accessed for large language models, for example, stand to gain from this trend. And it's not the only mega force in town either. As I say, we've got five of them in the report, it's not just the growth of artificial intelligence, it's also aging populations.

It's also a rewiring of globalization, of course, the transition to a lower carbon economy, and also a reshaping of the financial system as well. So these are big mega forces, big drivers of relative returns, and as we say in our outlook, things to be harnessed, opportunities to be gained to increase returns in this new regime.

Oscar Pulido: And these mega forces feel like they have a long-term nature to them. but you mentioned that they've also impacted year to date returns with artificial intelligence being just as important as what Jay Powell was saying at the Fed. And you see that in the performance of markets, but AI gets a lot of attention so maybe talk about a few of these other, mega forces in more detail. You mentioned aging population, the rewiring of the global economy, I think is how you phrased it. Why are these important?

Alex Brazier: Well, it's not just that they'll shape the macro picture looking ahead. The forces we're looking at here, unlike AI actually are all things that will limit the capacity of economies to supply goods and services, at least for a period. Take aging populations, for example, as we age,as a collectively age at least, dependency ratios go up, there are more older people relative to people in the working age population. That means economies produce less, but they don't, in and of themselves demand less. The mix of spending in economies shifts towards things like healthcare, and that means they're generally inflationary. Central banks face a challenge. They have to, as we were saying in this new regime, hold tight to try and keep inflation down towards their targets, but they don't just affect the macro picture. Because they change the mix of spending towards things like healthcare, they actually changed the mix of, earnings in the economy as well.

And so looking for opportunities where the aging of populations isn't really fully reflected in company growth expectations in things like healthcare or elderly care. It potentially creates interesting investment opportunities.

The other around, the rewiring of globalization is really the ongoing fragmentation of the global economy. We've been through a very long period where the only thing guiding supply chain construction was economic efficiency. We're now entering a period where it's not all about efficiency, it's about geopolitics as well. That's gonna reduce the efficiency of supply chains. It's gonna, again, hold back the supply capacity of economies, it's gonna shape the macro picture, but potentially creates really interesting investment opportunities as those supply chains rewire.

So where will new industrial capacity be built as supply chains are rewired? Is that reflected in pricing of securities in those geographies? Those are interesting questions to us for harnessing this particular megatrend, which sounds like it's a negative. And maybe is at the macro level, but actually creates interesting opportunities at the sector or company level.

And then of course, there's the transition to a lower carbon economy, which to us is being driven by policy, by technology, by changes in consumer preferences. And we're trying to assess how are those things changing? How is it gonna shape company earnings over time? And is that reflected again in, in market prices?

So to us we treat all of these mega forces in the same way as we treat Jay Powell. We ask, what does it mean for where the economy is heading? Is that reflected in prices and where it's not? That creates interesting investment opportunities.

Oscar Pulido: So, Alex, if I were to summarize a lot of what you mentioned, there's a lot happening. The new investment regime that you and colleagues from the BlackRock Investment Institute have mentioned. It's playing out, it's here to stay. And the investment opportunities are there. They might be different than what they've been in prior regimes, but they exist.

Alex Brazier: Absolutely right.Not the same opportunities, but lots of new opportunities.

Oscar Pulido: And Alex, maybe just a final question, which is when you describe this investor forum in London, is it a pretty cordial discussion or is it some good debate between the investors.

Alex Brazier: Yeah, it's, it's always pretty cordial, but, pretty healthy debate, I would say, especially in something like a new regime where we're collectively getting to grips with what the new dynamics are and where the new opportunities are. But I think everyone feels this is an exciting time. It's a new regime with a new playbook and new things to figure out, and that's a real opportunity for us to help our clients.

Oscar Pulido: All right, we'll look forward to hearing more c color commentary the next time one of these investor forms takes place. And Alex, as always, thank you for joining us on The.

Alex Brazier: Thank you.

Oscar Pulido: Thanks for listening to this episode, or The, Bid. Next up on The Bid. we're introducing our new weekly short form series from the BlackRock Investment Institute called Market Take.

Market. Take is a quick digest of what's driving markets and will be available as its own podcast where you can subscribe. You'll be able to hear the first three episodes right here on The Bid for the next few weeks on Mondays. So look out for our new market take series starting in July.

<<THEME MUSIC>>

<<SPOKEN DISCLOSURES>>

This material is intended for information purposes only, and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any securities, funds or strategies to any person in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The opinions expressed are as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the listener. Investing involves risks. BlackRock does and may seek to do business with companies covered in this podcast. As a result, listeners should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this podcast.

For full disclosures go to Blackrock.com/corporate/compliance/bid-disclosures

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