Research @ Citi Podcast

In this episode, we turn our attention to the U.S. food industry, which is grappling with changing consumer habits, the impact of GLP-1 drugs, the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign — and, yes, tariffs. Join host Lucy Baldwin and food products & producers analyst Thomas Palmer as they discuss how the industry has evolved since the pandemic, which trends are driving current buying habits, which companies are faring better or worse, and what M&A prospects look like in the coming year.  

The U.S. tariffs under President Trump have reached their highest levels in roughly a century, drawing comparisons with the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. But today’s economy and geopolitical fabric provide a starkly different backdrop — where central banks play a key role, where the Fed in particular must navigate a tricky path between potentially higher inflation and slower growth, and where escalating trade friction with China looms large.

Join host Rob Rowe and Chief Economist Nathan Sheets as they discuss the still-developing tariff structures and their implications for the United States itself as well as its trading partners. 

The U.S. tariffs are exerting an immediate impact on the financial markets, but they also have long-term consequences for economies — including a fundamental challenge to Europe’s longstanding export-led growth model. 

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is advancing at a blistering pace, impacting companies’ operating models and individuals’ daily lives. 

The new U.S. administration has moved apace in its first couple months with a full slate of executive orders. Amid all the action, policy uncertainty remains high, leaving C-suite executives and consumers alike wondering whether to make big expenditures now — or to wait and see how the policies unfold. 

In this episode, Head of Citi Research Lucy Baldwin talks to Chief Economist Nathan Sheets about how his view on the U.S. and global economy has evolved since the year-end, and what he sees in store from here — touching on tariffs, tax cut extensions, deregulation, deficit reductions, and the direction of “animal spirits”.

Often viewed as esoteric and offbeat, crypto assets were once eschewed by traditional capital market participants. 

U.S. retailers are reporting earnings for the final quarter of 2024, and so far they’re painting an overall picture of robust holiday sales. Meanwhile, frigid East Coast temperatures, tariff implications, and food inflation have made for a challenging consumer backdrop in this year’s opening quarter. In this episode, Anne Malone hosts analysts Paul Lejuez and Steve Zaccone ahead of Citi’s Global Consumer & Retail Conference (March 9 – 11) in South Florida to discuss the trends impacting consumers as well as the retailers in their stock coverage

Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs, are companies that own, operate or finance income-producing real estate. They are in a sense the “landlord of the U.S. economy”, as the properties they manage span a wide range of industries. 

Senior analyst Andrew Kaplowitz talks to Rob Rowe about the five themes he expects to be in focus at Citi’s Global Industrial Tech & Mobility Conference. 

The auto industry is an incredibly competitive one to begin with, with more than 60 large manufacturers globally and a hundred or so brands between them. The shift to electrics and hybrids provides even greater levels of choice for the consumer.

Donald Trump is back in the White House, and his policy actions are being watched closely by the markets and the world at large. 

The global economy continues to defy expectations, powering ahead over the past couple years even amid interest rate hikes, geopolitical instability, and other headwinds. With consumer spending still strong and central banks having largely turned more dovish, 2025 is starting from a favorable setup. 

How will U.S. equities perform in 2025? That’s the key question in our first episode of the year. 

Cybersecurity and its attendant threats have undergone a renaissance in the last decade. Enterprise cloud adoption, a work-from-anywhere culture, and greater Internet connectivity among devices have brought myriad benefits — and risks.

In this episode, healthcare analysts Geoff Meacham and Joanne Wuensch chat with Lucy Baldwin about developments in their respective sectors.

The global industrials sector is being reshaped by a series of distinct — yet interrelated — tectonic shifts, with critical implications for industrial policy and corporate strategy. 

The UK economy is broadly perceived to have stagnated, its growth having fallen behind that of many peer nations. Productivity growth in particular has shifted from moving in lockstep with the U.S. to decoupling from it since the Global Financial Crisis.

Donald Trump was elected to a second U.S. presidential term this week as the world watched the results unfold into the early hours of Wednesday morning. 

Defense spending is on the rise amid the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the United States is also looking to deter threats and avoid conflict elsewhere in the world. 

Despite media reports to the contrary, sustainable investment looks here to stay: an estimated $35 trillion in assets have a sustainable investment mandate. Why should investors care about extreme weather events, pollution, or food security? Because natural ecosystems underpin the functioning of a healthy economy and provide insights into key sectors dependent on natural capital. 

America’s restaurant industry has endured dramatic change in recent years. Covid forced many restaurants to shut down, and the survivors had to adapt their operating models for a world of social distancing. Coming out of the pandemic, stimulus benefits, higher wages and asset prices, and steady employment brought a wave of discretionary spending that benefited restaurants. But since late 2023, cracks have appeared in the form of a bifurcation in the marketplace between high- and low-income consumers, with the latter in particular feeling the impact of inflation on discretionary spend. Meanwhile, changing attitudes toward health and wellness are starting to impact menu options. Join Rob Rowe, U.S. Regional Director of Research, and Jon Tower, U.S. Restaurant Analyst, as they discuss how the industry and its customers are responding to the shifting landscape, and how restaurants are likely to fare over the coming year.  

Oil, Gold and Copper — the “Commodity Trinity” — are of particular interest to the financial markets given their importance to the global economy. Oil is a $3 trillion physical commodity market that influences geopolitics, inflation, currencies, and even bonds and equities. 

As artificial intelligence, or AI, continues to grab headlines, enterprise software companies are looking to prioritize AI-related projects with a view to future-proofing their investments. 

The digital transformation amounts to an ongoing shift from an economy that's characterized primarily by flows of physical “stuff” to one that’s more focused on data and information. 

Africa’s share of global GDP is in the low single digits, but two factors in particular could prove transformative for its economy: positive population growth amid a shrinking world population, and the benefit of “leapfrogging”, where its nations can adopt new technologies faster as latecomers by skipping traditional development phases. Meanwhile, the post-COVID world has created significant challenges. Higher inflation led to a string of defaults and collapsing currencies, and some multinational corporations have pulled their operations. How can Africa stay on a growth trajectory as it manages its fiscal deficits? Who is investing there today, and are there still attractive opportunities? What about political risk?

After last year’s strong holiday season, U.S. financial markets were concerned that this year’s first-quarter retailer earnings might reveal a lull in consumer spending. Yet the results surprised mostly to the upside as consumption proved resilient. How will the U.S. consumer fare for the remainder of this year and into 2025? Which retailing categories are seeing stronger or weaker spending? Join Citi’s Rob Rowe, U.S. Regional Director of Research and Head of the Global Strategy and Macro Group, and Paul Lejuez, Head of Consumer Discretionary for Citi Research, as they delve into these questions against the current economic backdrop, and discuss how Paul and his team measure and forecast discretionary spending power.

Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, built their initial reputation as passive investment vehicles, and in that context they’ve matured — with a tradable ETF for practically every passive index in the financial markets. But the entrepreneurial nature of the industry has redirected ETFs toward an actively managed path. This presents significant risks — and opportunities — for traditional asset managers and mutual fund complexes.

This year kicked off with financial markets expecting multiple rate cuts from the Fed, as a slowing trend in jobs growth and easing inflation expectations closed out 2023. 

The current state of the U.S. housing market can be traced back to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The ensuing retreat of builders and lenders resulted in housing starts trending below a pre-GFC average that had persisted for several decades — in an America with a much smaller population. 

The power grid is arguably the backbone of modern society. We’re now at a critical convergence of soaring power demand from the digital economy — driven by the rise of electric vehicles, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technological advances — and an aging grid that requires significant improvement. The International Energy Agency estimates that power lines globally will need to double in length between now and 2050, and that’s not including the old power lines that need to be replaced. Then there’s the red tape that stands in the way of new construction, the challenge of integrating renewable energy, and the need for coordinated planning to modernize the grid —all of which point to unprecedented, structural supply-and-demand shocks.

China’s once-staggering economic growth has stalled. It now faces myriad challenges, including persisting property market woes, rising geopolitical tensions and weak consumer demand.