Many investors now expect the Fed to cut future interest rates less than previously predicted, but will this result in higher bond yields? James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management, told Marketplace Radio “That 2% long-term inflation target in this type of economic reality may not be attainable.”

Click here to listen.

Capital-call loans represent yet another new bond market product. Should investors be concerned? Neil Aggarwal, head of securitized products at Reams Asset Management, told the Wall Street Journal that “We’ve never seen these types of capital-call loans securitized in public markets, so there’s not a lot of data on how they’ll perform.”

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Why is the U.S. Federal Reserve waiting to cut rates? It's important to get the timing right. Todd Thompson, Deputy Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director at Reams Asset Management told S&P Global Markets Intelligence that "when they start, they're not stopping."

Bob Kendall, president of Raymond James Investment Management, shares the benefits of a multi-boutique model, insights on the firm’s culture, and his point of view on how M&A fits into the firm’s growth goals.

Watch the interview here (subscription required).

Are major tech companies overbought? In his interview with BBC Business Today, Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James Investment Management, said that while short-term price movements are concerning, the strength of mega-cap companies has been driven by their fundamentals.

"This AI trend is very real,” he said. “It's a durable secular growth theme. As investors, we should be finding ways to lean into that going forward." (No link available.)

Bond volatility appears to be ebbing, and the market looks like it’s settling into ranges. James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management, told Bloomberg News that he believes it is a good environment to considering adding duration to bond portfolios.

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Investors are keeping a careful eye on inflation, the consumer, and the U.S. Federal Reserve. Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist for Raymond James Investment Management, told Bloomberg The Open that he previously had expected three interest rate cuts this year but now anticipates that the first cut will come in December.

“We never should have expected inflation to come down in a linear fashion, and there’s going to be bumps along the road,” he said. Overall, Orton believes the Fed has an easing bias: “It’s a when, not if situation.”

Click here to watch the interview. (Orton’s interview begins at the 4:06 mark in the broadcast.)

Do rising credit card delinquencies mean trouble for the U.S. economy? Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist for Raymond James Investment Management, told Nikkei Asia that he expects overall U.S. consumer activity to remain strong while lower-income households are challenged by slowing wage growth.

Inflation may have more inertia than the U.S. Federal Reserve would like. In his interview with Bloomberg News, James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management, said he believes the economy has changed since the pandemic, and the central bank has yet to address that change. Down-market consumers are already experiencing economic strain, and Camp expects a material slowdown for the U.S. economy overall in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

Click here to watch the interview. (Camp’s comments begin at the 2:35 mark in the broadcast and continue at 6:26 and 11:35.)

Investors may be adjusting to the expectation of fewer rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve, but James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management, believes that 2024 may see no rate cuts at all. In an interview with Jonathan Ferro and Lisa Abramowicz, he told Bloomberg Surveillance “I just think that there’s more inertia to inflation in a post-COVID economy than the Fed gives credit for.”

In the short term, economic growth, a healthy labor market, and above-target inflation aren’t motivating the Fed to cut rates. Over the longer term, “I just don’t think we’re in a 2% inflation world anymore,” Camp said. And it’s not just about 2024: He believes that the Fed should acknowledge the possibility of managing a higher-inflation economy for the next decade.

Idiosyncratic risk is one of the most appealing aspects of the market right now for Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James Investment Management. In his appearance on MSNBC's Squawk Box Europe, he explained that investors have opportunities to lean into what works and lean out of what doesn’t.

Watch the full video here.

Wall Street is optimistic about 2024, but risks remain on the horizon, including potential disappointment surrounding interest rates.

“I just think there’s still going to be challenges with the market perhaps being ahead of where the Fed is,” Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James Investment Management told the Wall Street Journal. “And that’s OK, because volatility presents opportunities.”

Read the Journal’s front-page article here (subscription required).

The case for owning BB-rated bonds has never been stronger, James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management, told Bloomberg Television.

“Since 2009, defaults have been almost non-existent in that space,” he said. BB- and BBB-rated bonds – “to us, the sweet spot of yield in credit” – together “encapsulate roughly half the investment-grade market, roughly half the high-yield market ... and if you look at a 6% yield relative to the equity risk premium and relative to most folks’ investment policy or investment objectives, that’s hitting a lot of marks. We think that’s going to be, especially for balanced investors, a very good entry point.”

Watch Camp’s interview here for his additional thoughts on the likely path of the yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury note. A separate Bloomberg article also quoted Camp on the development that has been “unambiguously good for bonds” during “an extraordinary couple of months for the bond market.” Read that article here. (Subscription required.)

What can investors expect in 2024?

"Where people have been spending money is going to change," Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist for Raymond James Investment Management, said on Fox’s Mornings with Maria. Orton said many parts of the economy are starting to work again, which is why he recommends leaning into quality and away from businesses where consumers might not want to spend money.

Watch his interview here.

After a year when seven mega-cap tech stocks dominated the S&P 500 Index, select small caps and emerging-market equities now could be poised to benefit from a falling dollar and lower interest rates.

“You probably, hopefully, will not have the same sort of roller coaster of emotions that we have had going forward,” Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James Investment Management told the Wall Street Journal. “We have moved to a little bit of a more normalized market environment where some of the stuff that hasn’t worked for a long time finally starts to work again.”

Read the Journal’s front-page article here (subscription required).

How can investors adapt to U.S. Federal Reserve decisions in a market that tends to get ahead of itself?

"Waiting for the market to come to you" has been a winning strategy over the past year says Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James Investment Management.

Watch his interview with CNBC's Power Lunch.

The timing is still very uncertain on future rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve, but James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management, does not expect the Fed to reduce interest rates in the first quarter of 2024.

Read more in S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"We see the beginnings of recession actually hitting in the second quarter and we expect the Fed to cut (interest rates) at the back half of the year," said James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management. Read his full remarks in Reuters.

“We know one thing about bonds,” says James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management. “At peak Fed — and this goes back to the five tightening cycles that I’ve lived through — fixed income instruments outperform cash, unambiguously, 100% of the time.”.

Watch his conversation with Becky Quick on CNBC’s Squawk Box discussing what the slowing rally in Treasuries means for fixed-income investors.

Even with a pause in rate hikes, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s statements on current economic conditions and his views on fiscal deficits will have significant short- and long-term impacts on markets, according to James Camp, CFA, Managing Director of Fixed Income and Strategic Income at Eagle Asset Management.

Read the full article at CNBC.com (subscription required).

Leaning into quality is the playbook for Matt Orton, CFA, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James Investment Management. His interview with CNBC TV-18 discussed how markets are realizing that the U.S. Federal Reserve is serious about “higher for longer” interest rates and why investors should prepare for an environment where quality investments can meaningfully outperform.

The full interview with CNBC TV-18 has more of his thoughts.