Market Perspectives
Zevin Asset Management
Q3 2024 Market Outlook

Maybe it really is different this time. A typical business cycle usually consists of an overheating economy followed by higher policy rates imposed by central banks. This eventually leads to a slowing economy, and in 6 out of the last 7 monetary tightening episodes in the U.S since 1970, the economy has fallen into recession. Higher lending rates slow consumption, leading to layoffs, which further slows consumption and more layoffs, and so on. However, this cycle has been different so far. When the Fed began raising interest rates in 2022 to fight inflation, the personal consumption response was much more muted than usual, thanks to previous emergency pandemic stimulus. The U.S. economy has slowed somewhat in response to tighter monetary policy, but employers have been mostly reluctant to implement significant layoffs with the fresh and painful memory of the 2020-2021 pandemic reopening when consumer demand rebounded sharply but employers had a hard time finding workers to satisfy demand. So-called “labor hoarding” has become a significant attribute of the current economic cycle, which has contributed to the relative strength in the labor market, consumption, and the economy in general.

Pat Miguel Tomaino

Q1 2021 Impact Update

At Zevin Asset Management, we build responsible investment portfolios for our clients. We then address risks and create positive social impact by engaging with portfolio companies. We use a range of techniques to move companies toward better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, but shareholder proposals are often necessary to turn up the heat. In Q1, we received word that several of our proposals would appear on company ballots in the coming months.

Responsible Investment and Divestment: Our Testimony

Another year has begun with climate catastrophe bearing down on our civilization. Two years after historic bushfires, Australia is now facing the worst flooding in decades. NATO is warning about an intensification of climate change’s effects, which could “lead to more extreme weather, to droughts and to flooding, force people to move, to more fierce competition about scarce resources, water, land.” This is already obvious for poor and marginalized communities like the “climate migrants” facing human rights violations at the US-Mexico border.

Q4 2020 Impact Update

At Zevin Asset Management, we build responsible investment portfolios for our clients. We then address risks and create positive social impact by engaging with portfolio companies. As 2020 draws to a close, it is clearer than ever that three of the most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues facing companies (and society) are COVID-19, racial injustice, and climate change. Our advocacy helped to move companies toward better practice in each of these areas.

Q3 2020 Impact Update

At Zevin Asset Management, we build responsible investment portfolios for our clients. We then address risks and create positive social impact by engaging with portfolio companies. In the third quarter of 2020, we continued challenging companies for accountability and positive change on environmental destruction and deforestation, labor standards, and racial justice.