2023-12: Global assets, US assets' driving forces getting more aligned with each other as the US interest rates ease, both include AI stocks

According to tsterm.com, using 6-month ahead horizon,

When we add non-US assets to the US ones and call that basket global assets, that basket used to be mostly driven by transportation, utility or energy, industrial, etc., so forces centred on goods production, whilst the US equity was more by the technology and biotechnology/pharmaceutical firms. For example, at the start of September, https://tsterm.com/?h=24w&asof=2023-09-01.

As the US interest rates ease over November, as of Mon 18 Dec, the top 5 causal predictors for global assets (US + non-US, equity + FX, interest rates, etc) are computed as:

1. CSX (railway transportation)

2. Microsoft MSFT (technology, AI)

3. Caterpillar CAT (industrial (financial))

4. Accenture ACN (consulting service, AI)

5. Skyworks SKWS (industrial, telecommunications)

The CSX for transportation still remains the top 1. MSFT and ACN newly joined since last week.

Just for the US equity QQQ SPY DIA, as of the same computation time, the top 5 causal predictors are computed as

1. Microsoft MSFT (technology, AI)

2. Accenture (consulting service, AI)

3. FedEx (consumer, postal service)

4. Nvidia (industrial, semiconductor, AI)

5. CSX (railway transportation)

We see a good overlapping between the two lists of causal predictors.