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DWS Long View Q1 - 2025

Multi Asset

5/19/2025

Jason Chen

Senior Portfolio Strategist

Dirk Schlüter

Co-Head, DWS House of Data

Ajay Chaurasia headshot

Ajay Chaurasia

Data Scientist, House of Data, DWS

  • Return forecasts for the next decade are relatively unchanged from the end of Q4 with global equities modestly higher and global fixed income marginally lower.
  • Dispersion across regions was the story in Q1, with a risk-off bond rally in the US versus stronger developed ex-US equity returns and higher bond yields across Europe and Japan.
  • The 10-year nominal return outlook continues to be very similar between High Yield corporate bonds and global equities, reflecting elevated real sovereign bond yields and still demanding equity valuations.
  • We enhance our methodology for estimating 10Y returns of commodities (via fully collateralized futures): we now focus on near-dated futures (expiring within one year) and attempt to model the impact of changing term structures between entering a futures contract and rolling over at expiry.
  • Return forecasts across alternatives are largely unchanged with the exception of REITs whose attractiveness has increased primarily because of 40-50bps higher dividend yields.

Summary 
In this report, we present the DWS long-term capital market assumptions for major asset classes as of the end of Q1 2025 while exploring the risks to these forecasts.

Entering 2025, growth and inflation concerns clouded a rather constructive earnings outlook for global equities. The economic impact of protectionist tariff policy has further damaged investor sentiment, introducing heightened volatility in US equity and fixed income markets. In contrast to previous years, a more sanguine macroeconomic and policy outlook across Europe and the rest of the world bolstered international equity returns in the early part of the year.

In Q1 of 2025, global equities were down modestly, with the MSCI All Country World (“ACWI”) index was down -1.3% for the quarter. Looking at the individual regions, S&P 500 returned   -4.3%, while ex-US developed markets and emerging markets outperformed, up 6.9% and 2.9%, respectively. Strengthening non-dollar currencies also bolstered these returns, driven by capital outflows from US dollar assets.

Amid the macroeconomic turnmoil, global fixed income markets were relatively strong. In the first quarter, the 10-year and 2-year US Treasury yields rallied from 35bps and 36bps, respectively, resulting in the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index and the Bloomberg US Treasury Index returning 2.8% and 2.9%, respectively. The Bloomberg Global Aggregate Bond Index returned a more modest 1.2% as sovereign yields across Europe moved higher in Q1 reflecting optimism around German fiscal impulse. Within credit, spreads were modestly higher, with US High Yield and US Investment Grade corporate bond spreads widening 60bps and 14bps, respectively, consistent with challenging conditions for risk assets.

While significant uncertainty remains about the final state of new tariff regimes, these forecasts include our macro economists’ best efforts to factor in the impact on near-term (2025 and 2026) growth  and inflation: real GDP estimates for 2025 have been cut by 1% for the US and by up to 1.5% for highly exposed markets (such as Korea or Mexico), but by less than 0.5% for European markets which benefit from an improving cyclical trend and increased investments (particularly in Germany). Overall, the 10-year real GDP (and therefore equity earnings growth) assumptions are lower by only around 20 bps p.a. in the US.

Our models now forecast an annual local currency return of 6.1% for the MSCI All Country World Index (“ACWI”) over the next decade, versus 5.9% three months prior as well as an decreased for the Global Aggregate Bond Index from 3.7% to 3.6%. At an aggregate level, we estimate the forecasted rate of return on a diversified portfolio at 5.7%*, up from 5.6% at the end of Q4.

*Source: Bloomberg as of 31 December 2024. DWS Calculations for a strategic asset allocation that targets volatility of 10%.