Led by the ‘price momentum’ factor which had its best quarterly performance in 20 years, the S&P 500 exited March posting its 50th consecutive day at least one standard deviation above its 50-day moving average for only the 12th time during the past 100 years. For all the talk of tightened monetary policy, liquidity remains abundant and appears to be a key driver for stocks. The +10.16% YTD price return for the S&P500 can be split between the M7 (37% or 3.76% of the gain from this 29% share of the market) and the S&P 493 (63% or +6.4% from the remaining 71% of the S&P’s total market cap). This more recently balanced return profile is evident from the far right side of the relative strength graph below of the equal weighted SPX to the market weighted SPX. After reviewing the performance of our funds, this note will touch on inflation and the upcoming Presidential election.
Markets continued to rock and roll during the month of February. This was driven by liquidity, the belief that decent economic growth will continue and a confidence that the market knows better than the Fed about the future path for interest rates. In this note, we will review the performance of the funds and explain why we remain cautiously net long the markets.
During the first month of 2024, analogous to a homing pigeon returning to its roost, the M7 index reverted with a vengeance to the top of the charts, surprising investors who had assumed that market breadth would continue to improve for the 3rd consecutive month. While results from Alphabet Inc. (GOOG.US) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.US) account for the one-day reversal shown on the far-right of the one-month indexed price graph below, subsequent earnings from Meta Platforms Inc. (META.US) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.US) more than enabled the domination of market-weighted vs. equal-weighted S&P 500 performance to continue. While we foresee improved market breadth this year, we do not believe small cap stocks (Russell 2000 in yellow) will regain their lustre.
The last 12 months marked a year during which most prognosticators were far off the mark with their forecasts for macro variables, yet still made money given the price gains experienced by pretty much everything financial, except for grain, base metal and energy commodities. The year started with broad agreement that 2022’s soaring interest rates could cause recessions in much of the world, inflation would abate (the question was to what degree), and that at 17.6X forward earnings, the S&P 500 was not cheap.
There’s little question that last month was a clean sweep for markets (and a notable positive month for our funds as well!) as the price of both stocks and bonds gapped higher as most investors shifted their expectations to rate cuts occurring during the first half of 2024. The U.S. dollar was weaker, credit spreads narrowed to new tights, speculative stocks outperformed high-quality stocks and the VIX Index tumbled to near year-to-date lows.
The tug of war between bulls and bears continued during the month of October. Fueled by a still strong jobs market and resilient consumer spending, the U.S. economy sustained its leadership position in global growth. This reality caused markets to increasingly price in the Fed’s ‘higher-for-longer mantra’, although there’s little question that Washington’s relentless bill and coupon issuance has played a significant role in pressing longer term yields higher; another fact not helpful for stocks last month.
Clearly equity prices have finally begun to be impacted by the inevitable and now relentless climb in interest rates. The current questions are whether stocks and bonds are fairly priced and how long before interest rates decline from their two-decade highs. This note will include thoughts on these issues, but first let’s discuss the performance of our funds and the attribution across the broader markets.
As we’ve often remarked, history rhymes but doesn’t repeat and sure enough, once again, markets remain convinced that the ‘song will remain the same’ this cycle. While both stocks and bonds ‘took it on the chin’ during August until the end of month rally, markets view recent evidence of a softening labour market as a precursor to Fed rate cuts during 2024. At this juncture, this scenario remains a high probability. The questions remain around the timing and extent of rate cuts, the cadence and composition of economic growth, and the subsequent impact on corporate profits and valuation of stocks. This note will delve into these questions, but first let’s recap the performance of our funds.
Equities continued to march higher during July as investors became increasingly confident that the forward macro environment would unfold in a manner helpful to stocks. From the Fed shifting its economic outlook to merely a “noticeable slowdown” from a recession to the extrapolation of the recent dovish news on the inflation front affirming big cuts in interest rates next year, the now 4+ month rally in risk assets was maintained. As can be seen from the far-right of the below relative strength graph of growth vs. value, July’s performance exhibited a more equal balance between growth and value indices.
The 493 ‘other’ stocks in the S&P 500 gained +3.7% during the first half of 2023, a gain that if predicted six months ago, would have seemed reasonable given the mix of macro variables at the start of January. Instead, the S&P 500 (SPX) generated a total return of +16.9%, fuelled by the 70% expansion in the P:E multiple accorded those other ‘7 macro cap tech’ stocks, with the first US$2T market company, Apple Inc., accounting for ~20% of the total gain in the index. Pundits attribute much of the recent five-week ramp in equities to investors’ thirst to be invested when the Fed is done hiking rates and the excitement radiating from artificial intelligence (“AI”).
While the story line for equities evolved during May 2023, the bottom line remained the same, as despite deteriorating market breadth, a handful of macro cap tech stocks enabled U.S. indices to close higher on the month. Hence, the S&P 500 (white line, right axis) exited May matching the price levels of mid-March 2022, back when the Fed initiated its series of rate hikes (red line, left axis). Washington’s end of month debt ceiling and spending agreement, plus the growing belief that a ‘not too hot, not too cold Goldilocks’ economic environment may be unfolding in the U.S. (jobs data last week), undoubtedly played roles in the positive outcome. However, it strikes us that the role of large systematic buy programs should not be underestimated.
A mere gently slowing economy and ‘sticky’ inflation combined to cause late April, Q1 S&P 500 (SPX) earnings to print better than recently lowered estimates. This ‘beat’, combined with investor positioning focused on not wanting to miss the traditional ‘Fed is done’ rally, catalyzed the +2.87% surge in stocks during the last two trading days of the month, enabling the SPX to print a 2nd consecutive positive month.
A confluence of factors continues to catalyze choppy, rangebound markets as investors strive to determine whether the Fed will be able to bring inflation under control prior to the U.S. economy falling into a recession. The convergence of the two lines inside the yellow oval on the far right of the 60+ year graph below speaks to this dilemma facing fundamental investors. On the one hand, the Fed’s main inflation metric surprised last month (white line, right axis) to the upside, while last week’s ISM Manufacturing Index (red line, left axis) screamed recession.
The first two trading days of February for the S&P 500 exhibited the same fear of missing out (FOMO) activity that played a significant role in fuelling the big move higher in stocks during January. Thereafter, slowing inflation (bullish), but not at a fast enough pace (bearish), provided fodder for both the bulls and the bears, keeping equities range-bound until mid-month when a stream of divergent data caused equities to ultimately succumb, giving back roughly half of their January gains.
January kicked off 2023 with equity markets continuing to exhibit the same ‘chop’ that characterized 2022. However, unlike many months last year, likely only dedicated short sellers or investors sitting mostly in cash complained at last month’s action. The price of stocks and bonds surged for three reasons.
For the second consecutive year, predicting the rate of inflation should prove to be the most important variable for investors to consider as we enter 2023. During the holiday season of 2021, the Fed’s median projection for the upper bound of the Fed Funds Rate for year-end 2022 was 1%, with the terminal rate forecast to ultimately reach 2.5%. Investors were happy with those estimates and stocks exited 2021 trading comfortably north of 20X forward earnings. The world then changed, causing most investors to suffer sizeable losses during 2022. In this note, we will review last year, discuss the performance of our funds and table our outlook for financial markets during 2023.
This year’s U.S. Thanksgiving was no turkey for investors as the price of pretty much everything, other than energy commodities, moved sharply higher. There were three drivers catalyzing this fifth beta rally during an otherwise tough year for investors: October’s softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data, soothing words from Fed officials, and the positioning of investors. The key question is whether this latest rally is another headfake, or does it constitute a sustainable bounce off the bottom. Before tackling this question, let’s review the performance of our funds.
Based on the aspiration that the timing of the Fed’s inevitable pivot may occur before year-end, perhaps as early as last week, equities enjoyed a huge move higher during the month of October. Unconvinced that various macro variables had yet to advance from flashing yellow to exhibiting the all-green, our funds remained conservatively positioned. While frustrating to the team in light of the big bounce in equities, given our long-term net returns, we’re cognizant that protecting client capital during this exceedingly rough 2022 has been top-of-mind for our investors. Hence, we will continue to aim to be the tortoise versus the hare. After discussing last month’s results, this note will update our views on the outlook for markets and the positioning of our funds.
In light of the growing stagflationary environment, investors experienced the full brunt of the renewed downside correlation between stocks and bonds during September, historically the worst month of the year. For the first time since 1938, the S&P 500 closed the quarter with a negative return (-5.28%) after earlier rising more than 10% (+14% July through mid-August gain) as breadth turned strongly negative during the last month of the quarter. In fact, to highlight what has become a year-to-date trend, 56.4% of all trading days during 2022 have shown declines for the SPX, including 26.1% of those days featuring declines of at least 1%. Perhaps even more startling, the Nasdaq-100 and long-term US Treasuries are both down by roughly 30% since the start of January and yields on U.S. 10-year bonds hit 4% for the first time since 2010.
Several months ago, investors began to think about stagflation, yet only during the past few weeks have they started to discount the potential for such a nasty outcome into the price of stocks and bonds. Equity indices, including the S&P 500, which had exhibited sharp gains at the start of August, fell hard towards the end of the month. After failing to surpass its 200-day moving average to the upside, the 50-day moving average provided no downside support, as the S&P 500 quickly descended towards 3,900. Once again, the catalyst for this volatility was the latest flip-flop by Fed Chair Powell, as his recent remarks made it quite clear there was no ‘Fed put’ on the horizon.