Our base case remains that we'll still see a soft landing in the U.S.: JPMorgan's Elyse Ausenbaugh

For possible effects on the markets, I want to bring in Elisa Austin Bowl. She’s the global investment strategist at JP Morgan Private Bank. Good morning to you. I think we’re all trying to understand what the numbers were yesterday, whether we’re in a bad position because if you have GDP going down, you have inflation going up, that’s almost like the worst place to be. I don’t know if we’re going to see what the kind of number we’re really going to see today. I’m actually wondering what the numbers are going to look like when you go back and look at January and December and whether that’s going to change, change things. But how are you looking at it? Look, I think it’s possible we get some upward revision to the historical PCE data with the release this morning. Maybe that number comes in a little hotter than what consensus is calling for based on the full quarter data we saw yesterday. But by and large, just zooming out, we have to acknowledge that this is happening against the backdrop of what is still really solid growth. I know there was that headline miss on GDP, but when you look at underlying measures of like domestic demand, that continues to trend at a really strong level and it’s encouraging to us given how we’re feeling about the equity market. If you were to look at the equity market at the end of this year, where do you think we’re gonna end? Base case, we’re calling for the S&P 500 to end in the range of 5200 to 5300, which does represent pretty solid upside for investors from here. But continue to be really focused on finding alpha opportunities and how diverse, if you will, Is that upside in your mind or do you think that it’s it’s concentrated in a certain group of stocks? Look, we believe that the leaders up to this point can continue to thrive and likely will participate in that upside. But what we’re really focused on is a broadening of this strength, particularly in some of the more cyclically oriented segments of the economy, just given what you’re seeing with global manufacturing data as an example. And you’re not worried. I mean, historically when you walked into a presidential election, there’s been a lot of sort of stagnation, just about everything because there’s sort of a, let’s just wait and see. Yeah, the uncertainty sort of paralysis. But I think we kind of have this benefit of knowing what we’re going to get with either candidate depending on how the election turns out. And when you look at history, both of them kind of saw double digit S&P 500 returns throughout their presidential term. So I don’t think either is, you know, by and large a bad thing for the stock market. Hardest question you’re going to have to answer all day today. Do you agree or disagree with your boss about a hard landing? Given what he just said? He said that it’s impossible. I think he said in the journal thought it was very hard to have a a soft landing right now. Have you guys talked about that? Ohh yeah, we we’re actually speaking. I didn’t know he consulted you this morning and what he was gonna say. Or maybe you were consulting him with what you were gonna say. Our base case remains that we will still see a soft landing in the United States. But as ever, just like how Jamie talks about being prepared for all outcomes, we continue to work with investors to make sure their portfolios have different positions that can kind of weather and navigate different outcomes as well. It’s J. It’s so it’s Jamie. It’s Jamie. You mean Mr. Diamond? I I think Mr. Diamond. Excuse me. All right. Mr. Diamond. You want to? Maybe it is. Jamie, I was going to say, do you, do you want to weigh in on on on what’s going to happen if the Federal Reserve is no longer independent or or if we have 15 Supreme Court justices? That’s what the other side wants to do. Oh, you guys didn’t like talking about. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. No, Anything that we we we will take like that. It’s fact and we’ll talk about till we realize. We’ll never talk about it again, but we’ll talk about it for a lot of day, I guarantee it. Sure. You you’re worried about. Yep. Knights worrying about the independence of the Fed or the 45% long term capital gains rate, which is worse? Probably the 45% capital gains rate, but there’s always a way to figure out how to navigate new changes.