Mazars Wealth Management Investment Newsletter January 2019
Recent market falls follow a noticeable change in mood, and in particular how investors choose to interpret various economic data releases. In the past few years markets have chosen to place more weight on measures which appear supportive of economic growth, and have felt comfortable dismissing those which do not, as ultra low interest rates in developed markets drove asset allocation decisions towards equities. Since the US Federal Reserve has delivered on its forecasted rate rises, US treasuries have regained their attractiveness as an investment option for any investors troubled by signs of a growth slowdown.
The US drove growth prospects throughout 2018 leading to a divergence in fortunes across global stock markets. Despite positive personal spending data and a labour market which breeds consumer confidence and rising wages, concerns about the fading effects of tax cuts, export weakness caused in part by Dollar strength, and a rise in corporate borrowing costs have dominated sentiment. These factors when coupled with a White House which continues to jeopardise global trade and threaten the independence of the Federal Reserve have led to a shift to a much more bearish market sentiment.
In the ten years which have elapsed since the Global Financial Crisis, as well as near uniform ultra accommodative monetary policy, the world has relied on China to be the engine of economic growth. China’s growth has slowed in recent years and many leading indicators on Chinese growth, with the exception of housing construction, point to a continuing slowdown, but it is true that the Chinese authorities have both the fiscal fire power and the will to support growth.
Our Investment Committee agreed to maintain our cautious stance reflected by our neutral position in equities and overweight position in gold. Whilst recent market falls could be seen as a buying opportunity for equities, we remain vigilant to the possibility of continued volatility in markets as a variety of geopolitical and economic factors remain unresolved in the short term.
As markets celebrate Congress’s decision not to self-immolate, investors should reflect on how low the bar for rational behaviour by policymakers is, and whether risk premiums reflect the present political and geopolitical tectonic shifts. Despite the recent stock market rallies, which is really a one sector story, technology and AI, risks remain high.
Our key theme since the beginning of the year is that the world is a volatile and unpredictable place. To be fair, this could have been our theme every year since 2006 and we would have still hit the mark. But this is not garden-variety volatility.
If investors collectively believe in the second coming of QE, then at some point, we should expect a severe market retrenchment. But what if markets are more sanguine than that? What will be the major catalyst, to unleash market forces for risk assets to escape their narrow bands?
One of the key risks we persistently flagged in the second part of last year has been the swiftly rising risks in the bond market. Bond risks are not like equities. They are not linear, which means that they can escalate very quickly.
Even if we recognise that the world has profoundly changed, we try to analyse it with the eyes of the past. Instead of trying to forecast with the past’s eyes, we need to acknowledge how the present has changed, and develop the right tools to analyse the future properly.
The British Autumn drama entered its third act, and the worst seems behind us. The UK has what may pass for an equivalent to the Euro-crisis technocratic governments in Italy and Greece. That particular playbook would, at this point, see market volatility ebb. Having said that, the play usually hides an unsurprising fourth act.
Quantitative easing is the ultimate tool to pacify markets. Once it was applied with success, it became very difficult for policymakers to consider other options to restore market calm. They can stop QE, and even reverse it for a while, but the moment markets become too wobbly, they will not hesitate to deploy it.
Investors worry about equity volatility. However this is, by and large, transient. Instead, we should all be cognisant that we are in a paradigm shift. If growth falters and inflation doesn’t break, the central banks’ mandate and independence may be up for review.
At the end of June our Investment Committee convened to decide the asset allocation for the third quarter. There were no changes to asset allocation, however some duration has been restored to the fixed income allocation. We continue to hold a neutral position in equities, an underweight position in fixed income and an overweight position in alternatives.
Ostensibly, everything about the latest rally in equity markets screams “Bear Market rally”. After all, how can we call an end to the Bear Market when Quantitative Tightening, the great process to unwind some of the Fed’s recent purchases, hasn’t even begun?
It takes a confluence rather than individual risks to cause catastrophe, as any veteran of the Global Financial Crisis will attest. We believe that there’s a mounting probability that we are seeing such a confluence of risks now, one that could significantly hurt growth:
Cancelling a person, right or wrong, is no small feat, and there are repercussions. “House of Cards” was a series that literally made Netflix, yet it features much less prominently after Kevin Spacey’s cancellation. The cancelled actor/celebrity will have worked with other people, who will now see their incomes reduced as works of art are withdrawn and themselves smeared by association.
The Omicron variant was not much of a surprise. We have already seen many mutations of Covid-19. But a hawkish Fed? We haven’t experienced one since 2018. As the potential of a new outbreak emerges, Fed Chair Jay Powell surprised markets by insisting that the US central bank would accelerate asset purchase tapering in December. Instead of customarily intoning the ‘Fed Put’, as per usual in times of crisis, Mr. Powell added fuel to the fire, causing unusual, for December, equity volatility.
A new, more transmissible variant, and a surprisingly hawkish Fed brought some of the most volatile trading days in months.
What do the British budget and COP 26 have in common? The -possibly inevitable- return of ‘Big State’. The 1980s ushered in an era of lower taxes and reliance on consumers to fuel growth. The Covid-19 pandemic, twelve years after the global financial crisis, followed by at least a decade of ‘Sustainability Economics’ may put […]
Seen from a bird’s eye view, the Fed has turned more hawkish in preparation to taper asset purchases. As a result, markets are now more prone to respond with volatility to rising risks, of which there’s no shortage: From soaring natural gas prices to impaired supply chains threatening consumers and businesses; from a new status […]
For a long time our central theme has been the disconnect between the real and the financial economy. Nowhere has this disconnect been mademore clear than in the Fed’s communication in August. The bullish economic outlook clashed directly with a dovish approach on interest rates.Actions speak louder than words, however, and it is becoming apparent […]
Visibility about the future is as low as it has ever been. In recent memory it is difficult to recall a market and economic environment with such low degree of consensus amongst investors and business leaders. Even as vaccination is bringing the world closer to the end of the pandemic, uncertainty is everywhere to be […]
I remember when liberal capitalism failed. The night of Friday 12 September 2008 no one was particularly worried. Barclays would rescue Lehman Brothers, like Bear Stearns was saved before it. On Monday morning we got the news. A Wall Street icon was the first victim of a year-long credit crunch. If one giant can fall, […]
April saw a de-escalation of bond yields and a further rise in stock market prices across the board. Risk assets began to gear up for the acute phase of the economic rebound, as vaccinations progress in most G7 countries, especially the UK and the US. Currently there are three big themes we think all investors should be watching. Find out here -
Global economic divergence has caused a surge in input prices evident in various Purchase Manager Index reports as well as producer price indices. In early February markets began to price in the probability of higher inflation. The long end of the yield curves (where inflation lives) rose, while the short end (affected more by interest rates) remained at the same levels.
Late in 2020 equity markets climbed on the anticipation of vaccinations and are now consolidating at higher levels. They are now trading sideways, patiently waiting for economies to open and earnings to catch up to heightened valuations. In the first two months of the year, equities have gained a healthy 2.6% (though less than 1% in GBP terms). Nevertheless, for all the excitement about vaccines and the impending reopening of the global economy, investors understand the exceptional equity performance since last year and, in fact, risk asset performance in the past twelve, is primarily owed to the ability of central banks to absorb risk. Central banks have been, and continue to be, the “only game in town”. The cornerstone of their ultra-accommodative policy has been the absence of inflation, which would compel them to adhere to their mandate and tighten money supply in the real economy, to the detriment of the financial economy.
Is this a bubble? Is it safe to invest at such high valuations? This constitutes 90% of client questions these days, and for good reason. It seems outlandish that stock markets are sky high while the global economy is having its worst quarter since the second world war. The answer, the House View we put […]
November featured plenty of good news for markets: The US election returned multilateralism to the Oval Office, Covid-19 vaccination is set to begin before the year’s end and S&P 500 companies have surpassed earnings expectations. In the background, central banks have vigorously reaffirmed their commitment to keep markets lubricated and the mounting debt cheap. It […]
Dear reader,This note was written mid-day on 3 November, just a few hours before the US presidential election result. Naturally, we were tempted to delay, to get a clearer view of the earth-shattering events surrounding the world’s biggest economy and longest standing democracy. However, we decided to consider that the US presidential election could be […]
Covid-19 comes at the back of 11 years of sluggish growth, rock-bottom interest rates but absence of inflation, negative global capital investment, manifest income inequality, stagnant wages and low consumer confidence levels, often dubbed “Secular Stagnation”. It is more of an understatement to say that these pressures were “greatly exacerbated” by the pandemic, and probably more accurate to say that the additional strain of the worst quarter for economic output since the end of World War II brings significant dangers to the stability of the global economic and financial systems.
In a decision for the history books, the US Federal Reserve, the world’s de facto central bank, abandoned a hard 2% inflation target in favour of a more flexible regime, attempting to prevent deflation resulting from secular stagnation exacerbated by the persistent COVID-recession. Inflation has finally been chosen as the weapon of choice against mounting […]
For the better part of the last three years the core of our investment policy has been simple: “Don’t fight the Fed”. As accomplished economist Mohammed El-Erian put it, Quantitative Easing is not the biggest game in town, it is rather the only game in town. Prices for risk assets are almost completely dependent on […]
The “right” fundamentals Often the first thing we are taught about something, especially if it comes from someone with authority, like a parent, a teacher or our experienced financial adviser, is taken as a “fundamental” truth. In psychology, this is called the “primacy effect”. Any other “truths” that contradict or seek to modify that first […]
Read our full monthly here Should we even be investing in this “crazy” market? Volatility is one of our biggest enemies in investing. It is very difficult to wake up one morning and look at a 20% drop in one’s life savings, a move that may have happened in a matter of days. An inevitable […]
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According to data from the Financial Times and Bloomberg, investors have withdrawn more than £20bn from UK equity funds since the Brexit referendum. The number dwarves the £4bn estimated net inflows from ETFs during the same period. Outflows from funds and inflows from ETFs suggest that the “slow money” is moving away from UK equities, […]
The chart below shows the range of returns across top nine countries in the MSCI Emerging Markets index by market capitalisation. Combined they make up 88.6% of the indexas of the end of March. The vast majority of emerging market equity funds use this as their benchmark. The largest constituent in the EM index is […]
In the past few decades, one of the policy decisions that were key for investors was central bank independence. In the past, central banks constituted the arm of the Treasury. Run by top notch economists, their ability to review economic conditions independently has given them the power to reduce economic volatility by making sure that […]
Global economic data for June indicated that the global economic slowdown continues. Pockets of resilience can still be found where domestic demand is strong, but where external demand is driving the ecosystem, weakness persists. Data out of China have somewhat stabilised but are still soft. Weakness out of Europe and Japan indicates that the rebalancing […]
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Global economic data is showing signs of improving, with US GDP surprising to the upside, Spain posting impressive growth and Italy coming out of recession. Eurozone unemployment is at the lowest rate since before the Global Financial Crisis as exports have remained surprisingly strong thanks to Chinese stimulus. However there are continued risks for global […]
Read our full Monthly Market Blueprint April 2019 The global economic slowdown persisted, with conditions in the manufacturing sector contracting, especially for exporters. However some improvement in the service sector, and evidence of inventory depletion give hopes for cyclical economic rebound. Meanwhile trade wars, Brexit uncertainty, weaker Europe and growing suspicions of a sharper than […]
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