Doug Peta

Chief US Investment Strategist at BCA Research | Student of Economics, Financial Markets and Immaculate Grid

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Fresh off the Bank Credit Analyst’s Chart of the Week win, I humbly submit today’s U.S. Investment Strategy for Title of the Week.

It’s for everyone who’s wondered why equities have been so resilient.

[BCA Research @bcaresearch]

📈 BCA’s #ChartoftheWeek!

The K-shaped economy now extends to business investment. @DougPeta notes:

💻 Demand for information processing equipment is growing even faster than in 1999...
📉 ...yet demand for everything else has only kept pace with inflation for 12 years
📊 The K-shaped same divide now shows up in investment, profits, and equity performance

The durability of the tech capex boom will determine when investors should rotate away from the tech-dominated US, and Korea and Taiwan in EM.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

I’m a mere mortal and know I can’t beat @TylerKepner in @immaculategrid so my goal is simply to top him in a square or two every now and then. Not sure if today might have fit the bill but I dug deep.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

@TylerKepner @_mcameron44 @immaculategrid @FitzMagic_14 Wow. I’m not in your league, though Chuck Klein gets this Phillies fan out of a lot of jams.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

We interrupt our regularly scheduled macro and markets programming for the following PSA:

If you’re working on your NFL @immaculategrid in public and @FitzMagic_14 offers to play for money, run away.

Ditto @_mcameron44 in baseball.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

The composition of job creation has improved, too. Health care and social assistance are still the biggest sources of payroll expansion but they haven’t been the only game in town so far this year.
3/3

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Global markets didn’t get their ideal outcome in Islamabad (surely the first sentence that has ever begun that way), but SPX futures are taking the news in stride and near-month Brent and WTI futures aren’t exactly freaking out.
1/2

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Aside from the fact that we’ve seen this narrative arc before, some green shoots have sprouted in the labor market. Three months into the year, payrolls have expanded at a 68k/month clip, blowing away 2025’s 10k.
2/3

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

@BrentBeshore @PermanentEquity You forgot to mention the semi-annual bond issues to fund dividends to return all the GP’s capital and then some.

April Fool!

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

The article talks about Fibonacci retracement but today was the seventh straight session that the S&P closed below its 200-day moving average.

[BCA Research @bcaresearch]

⚠️ Energy chokepoint keeps pressure on risk

Our US Investment Strategist @DougPeta told @business:
🛢️ Until Hormuz flows normalize, inflation pressure is likely to stay elevated
📉 Higher energy costs could keep weighing on global growth
⚠️ From a technical perspective, the worst may not be over yet

https://t.co/SZjV4UcS1K

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

@bcaresearch @business The article looks for support at 50% retracement (~5,980), but the simpler technical story is that the index has broken below its 200-day moving average and each attempt to get back above it over the last six sessions has been repelled.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

You mean like saying investment banks do “God’s work?”

[Oren Cass @oren_cass]

Need some Old-Right commentators to jump in here and explain to Jamie Dimon that whatever the financial sector is doing is reliably rational, productive, value-creating, economy-boosting, and supportive of human flourishing.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Agreed, especially with the savings rate already near its lows.

But January’s 0.8% month-over-month rise in aggregate weekly payrolls (workers * avg hourly earnings * avg weekly hours) means that the gap will narrow next month and the OBBBA tax refunds are coming.

[Peter Berezin @PeterBerezinBCA]

Something’s gotta give:

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

It made my week to learn @greg_ip has been following @bcaresearch for the 30 years I’ve been reading him.

Btw, our math checks out: after taxes, a 10% gain in equities is tantamount to an 18% boost in income. Wealth’s influence on activity is rising.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Full disclosure: This post was written by a Commanders fan from the DMV.

Just sayin’

[Brian Payne @AltsPayne]

#Salesforce is the Dallas Cowboys of Tech — legendary heyday, massive fanbase, and now…perpetual disappointment.

Just checking on them boyz 🤠

-10% since the EPS beat and higher FY26 revenue guidance (Dec)
-16% YTD
-30% from the 2021 SaaS peak

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Thanks to @BNNBloomberg for giving @bcaresearch a chance to weigh in on D.C.’s latest private sector intervention.

You really can’t take @ChicagoBooth out of the strategist, even if he graduated an eternity ago.

https://t.co/oxYN3uTFVO

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

There’s still nothing doing on the hiring front away from Health Care & Social Assistance and Leisure & Hospitality.

Don’t be fooled by December’s unemployment rate decline; the Fed will cut more than expected this year.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Health care and social assistance cemented its hold over hiring in October and November, while leisure and hospitality remains the only other source of meaningful YTD job creation.

We’re lucky to have those spaces, but they don’t pay well.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

@juleshyman From the first Yo La Tengo Hanukkah shows in 2001. Ira signed it, with some concern, after learning I’d attended the first seven.

I made it to the first 20, back when they were at Maxwell’s in Hoboken.

Best part of the holiday season.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Beyond breadth concerns, job creation concentrated in Health Care & Social Assistance poses two challenges:

1. HC&SA activity has nowhere near the multiplier effect of homebuilding, mfg or lending.

2. The functions added YTD pay 85% of the average job.

[Doug Peta @DougPeta]

Ex-Health Care & Social Assistance, and Leisure & Hospitality, nonfarm payrolls would have shrunk by 21k YTD and 220k since May.

And people say equity breadth is narrow.

October and November numbers out Tuesday.