We're removing our short Blackstone (BX) call from Investing Ideas. Recent Macro market movements led Hedgeye Senior Macro analyst Darius Dale to the following conclusions:
- The October retail sales print is a good number in isolation and, more broadly, positively impacts our Q4 real GDP growth estimate, which we are now keen to revise higher to the midpoint of our forecast range.
- In GIP Model quadrant speak, this implies a 2nd consecutive quarter of #Quad2 and warrants a considerable shake-up of our long/short factor exposure biases.
- Noteworthy changes include: A) no longer buying Treasury bonds, Utilities and/or Gold on pullbacks; B) no longer shorting the Financials on strength; and C) adopting a now-favorable view of U.S. Equity beta.
As a result, we're trimming shorts in Investing Ideas to get net long of U.S. equity beta.
