2016.11.03 16:43 vxx Follow up on past loops
2011.04.23 16:57 Terraria
2010.11.13 18:48 Highsight Fallout Mods
2023.06.09 23:45 Certain_Particular_2 HELL SMP [SMP] [PVP]
2023.06.09 23:42 Jawnathin Found my unicorn: Acer XR383CUR
2023.06.09 23:42 AutoModerator [Genkicourses.site] Get: ✔️Andre Chaperon – Collection ✔️ Full Course Download
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2023.06.09 23:32 Allykatz90 8 hour session, 8 deaths from bugs, 8 funny stories
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2023.06.09 23:32 WindscribeSupport Regarding downgrades from 20/30/50/60GB Free plans
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2023.06.09 23:31 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
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The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
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Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
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Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
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The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
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I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
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Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
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As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
($ADBE $ORCL $KR $ACB $ATEX $ITI $LEN $MPAA $JBL $ECX $POWW $HITI $MMMB $CGNT $WLY $RFIL)
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2023.06.09 23:31 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
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Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
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Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
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The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
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I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
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Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
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As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
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2023.06.09 23:30 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
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The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
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Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
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(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).
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2023.06.09 23:29 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
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The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
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Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
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2023.06.09 23:29 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
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The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
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Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
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Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
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The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
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I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
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Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
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As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
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2023.06.09 23:29 BigOk8056 Terrifying Weed Paranoia
2023.06.09 23:28 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
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The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
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Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
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2023.06.09 23:25 bigbear0083 Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning June 12th, 2023
The S&P 500 rose slightly Friday, touching the 4,300 level for the first time since August 2022 as investors looked ahead to upcoming inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement.
The broad-market index gained 0.11%, closing at 4,298.86. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16% to end at 13,259.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 43.17 points, or 0.13%, closing at 33,876.78. It was the 30-stock Dow’s fourth consecutive positive day.
For the week, the S&P 500 was up 0.39%. This was the broad-market index’s fourth straight winning week — a feat it last accomplished in August. The Nasdaq was up about 0.14%, posting its seventh straight winning week — its first streak of that length since November 2019. The Dow advanced 0.34%.
Investors were encouraged by signs that a broader swath of stocks, including small-cap equities, was participating in the recent rally. The Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day, but notched a weekly gain of 1.9%.
“It’s the first time in a while where investors seem to be feeling a greater sense of certainty. And we think that’s been a turning point from what had been more of a bearish cautious sentiment,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.
“We think that as we walk through these next few weeks, that will be increasingly clear that the economy is more resilient than folks have given it credit for the last six months,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. “That will sort of dawn on people that small-caps and cyclicals probably have a reasonable shot to play catch up.”
The market is also looking toward next week’s consumer price index numbers and the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets are currently anticipating a more than 71% probability the central bank will pause on rate hikes at the June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration Riddled With Volatility
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The second Triple Witching Week (Quadruple Witching if you prefer) of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week. Triple-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 20 years, but down 6 of the last 8.
Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Triple-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 27 of the last 33 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 33-year span. S&P 500’s averaged –0.46%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. 2022’s sizable gains during the week after improve historical average performance notably.
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A New Bull Market: What’s Driving It?
The S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th (2022) closing low. This puts the index in “official” bull market territory.
Of course, if you had been reading or listening to Ryan on our Facts vs Feelings podcast, you’d have heard him say that October 12th was the low. He actually wrote a piece titled “Why Stocks Likely Just Bottomed” on October 19th!
The S&P 500 Index fell 25% from its peak on January 3rd, 2022 through October 12th. The subsequent 20% gain still puts it 10% below the prior peak. This does get to “math of volatility”. The index would need to gain 33% from its low to regain that level. This is a reason why it’s always better to lose less, is because you need to gain less to get back to even.
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So, what’s next? The good news is that future returns are strong. In his latest piece, Ryan wrote that out of 13 times when stocks rose 20% off a 52-week low, 10 of those times the lows were not violated. The average return 12 months later was close to 18%. The only time we didn’t see a gain was in the 2001-2002 bear market.
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** Digging into the return drivers**
It’s interesting to look at what’s been driving returns over the past year. This can help us think about what may lie ahead. The question was prompted by our friend, Sam Ro’s latest piece on the bull market breakout. He wrote that earnings haven’t been as bad as expected. More importantly, prospects have actually been improving.
The chart below shows earnings expectations for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. You can see how it rose in the first half of 2022, before collapsing over the second half of the year. The collapse continued into January of this year. But since then, earnings expectations have steadily risen. In fact, they’ve accelerated higher since mid-April, after the last earnings season started. Currently, they’re higher than where we started the year.
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Backing up a bit: we can break apart the price return of a stock (or index) into two components:
I decomposed annual S&P 500 returns from 2020 – 2023 (through June 8th) into these two components. The chart below shows how these added up to the total return for each year. It also includes:
- Earnings growth
- Valuation multiple growth
- The bear market pullback from January 3rd, 2022, through October 12th, 2022
- And the 20% rally from the low through June 8th, 2023
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You can see how multiple changes have dominated the swing in returns.
The notable exception is 2021, when the S&P 500 return was propelled by earnings growth. In contrast, the 2022 pullback was entirely attributed to multiple contraction. Earnings made a positive contribution in 2022.
Now, multiple contraction is not surprising given the rapid change in rates, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) looked to get on top of inflation. However, they are close to the end of rate hikes, and so that’s no longer a big drag on multiples.
Consequently, multiple growth has pulled the index higher this year. You can see how multiple contraction basically drove the pullback in the Index during the bear market, through the low. But since then, multiples have expanded, pretty much driving the 20% gain.
Here’s a more dynamic picture of the S&P 500’s cumulative price return action from January 3rd, 2022, through June 8th, 2023. The chart also shows the contribution from earnings and multiple growth. As you can see, earnings have been fairly steady, rising 4% over the entire period. However, the swing in multiples is what drove the price return volatility.
Multiples contracted by 14%, and when combined with 4% earnings growth, you experienced the index return of -10%.
What next?
As I pointed out above, the problem for stocks last year was multiple contraction, which was driven by a rapid surge in interest rates.
The good news is that we’re probably close to end of rate hikes. The Fed may go ahead with just one more rate hike (in July), which is not much within the context of the 5%-point increase in rates that they implemented over the past year.
Our view is that rates are likely to remain where they are for a while. But rates are unlikely to rise from 5% to 10%, or even 7%, unless we get another major inflation shock.
This means a major obstacle that hindered stocks last year is dissipating. The removal of this headwind is yet another positive factor for stocks as we look ahead into the second half of the year.
Why Low Volatility Isn’t Bearish
“There is no such thing as average when it comes to the stock market or investing.” -Ryan Detrick
You might have heard by now, but the CBOE Volatility Index (better known as the VIX) made a new 52-week low earlier this week and closed beneath 14 for the first time in more than three years. This has many in the financial media clamoring that ‘the VIX is low and this is bearish’.
They have been telling us (incorrectly) that only five stocks have been going up and this was bearish, that a recession was right around the corner, that the yield curve being inverted was bearish, that M2 money supply YoY tanking was bearish, and now we have the VIX being low is bearish. We’ve disagreed with all of these worries and now we take issue with a low VIX as being bearish.
What exactly is the VIX you ask? I’d suggest reading this summary from Investopedia for a full explanation, but it is simply how much option players are willing to pay up for potential volatility over the coming 30 days. If they sense volatility, they will pay up for insurance. What you might know is that when the VIX is high (say above 30), that means the market tends to be more volatile and likely in a bearish phase. Versus a low VIX (say sub 15) historically has lead to some really nice bull markets and small amounts of volatility.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog now.
The last time the VIX went this long above 14 was for more than five years, ending in August 2012. You know what happened next that time? The S&P 500 added more than 18% the following 12 months. Yes, this is a sample size of one, but I think it shows that a VIX sub 14 by itself isn’t the end of the world.
One of the key concepts around volatility is trends can last for years. What I mean by this is for years the VIX can be high and for years it can be low. Since 1990, the average VIX was 19.7, but it rarely trades around that average. Take another look at the quote I’ve used many times above, as averages aren’t so average. This chart is one I’ve used for years now and I think we could be on the cusp of another low volatility regime. The red areas are times the VIX was consistently above 20, while the yellow were beneath 20. What you also need to know is those red periods usually took place during bear markets and very volatile markets, while the yellow periods were hallmarked by low volatility and higher equity prices. Are we about to enter a new period of lower volatility? No one of course knows, but if this is about to happen (which is my vote), it is another reason to think that higher equity prices (our base case as we remain overweight equities in our Carson House Views) will be coming.
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Lastly, I’ll leave you on this potentially bullish point. We like to use relative ratios to get a feel for how one asset is going versus to another. We always want to be in assets or sectors that are showing relative strength, while avoiding areas that are weak.
Well, stocks just broke out to new highs relative to bonds once again. After a period of consolidation during the bear market last year, now we have stocks firmly in the driver seat relative to bonds. This is another reason we remain overweight stocks currently and continue to expect stocks to do better than bonds going forward.
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Our Leading Economic Index Says the Economy is Not in a Recession
We’ve been writing since the end of last year about how we believe the economy can avoid a recession in 2023, including in our 2023 outlook. This has run contrary to most other economists’ predictions. Interestingly, the tide has been shifting recently, as we’ve gotten a string of relatively stronger economic data. More so after the latest payrolls data, which surprised again.
One challenge with economic data is that we get so many of them, and a lot of times they can send conflicting signals. It can be hard to parse through all of it and come up with an updated view of the economy after every data release.
One approach is to combine these into a single indicator, i.e. a “leading economic index” (LEI). It’s “leading” because the idea is to give you an early warning signal about economic turning points.
Simply put, it tells you what the economy is doing today and what it is likely to do in the near future.
The most popular LEI points to recession
One of the most widely used LEI’s is released by the Conference Board, and it currently points to recession. As you can see in the chart below, the Conference Board’s LEI is highly correlated with GDP growth – the chart shows year-over-year change in both.
You can see how the index started to fall ahead of the 2001 and 2008 recession (shaded areas). The 2020 pandemic recession was an anomaly since it hit so suddenly. In any case, using an LEI means we didn’t have to wait for GDP data (which are released well after a quarter ends) to tell us whether the economy was close to, or in a recession.
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As you probably noticed above, the LEI is down 8% year-over-year, signaling a recession over the next 12 months. It’s been pointing to a recession since last fall, with the index declining for 13 straight months through April.
Quoting the Conference Board:
“The Conference Board forecasts a contraction of economic activity starting in Q2 leading to a mild recession by mid-2023.”
Safe to say, we’re close to mid-2023 and there’s no sign of a recession yet.
What’s inside the LEI
The Conference Board’s LEI has 10 components of which,
You can see how these indicators have pulled the index down by 4.4% over the past 6 months, and by -0.6% in April alone.
- 3 are financial market indicators, including the S&P 500, and make up 22% of the index
- 4 measure business and manufacturing activity (44%)
- 1 measures housing activity (3%)
- 2 are related to the consumer, including the labor market (31%)
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Here’s the thing. This popular LEI is premised on the fact that the manufacturing sector, and business activity/sentiment, is a leading indicator of the economy. This worked well in the past but is probably not indicative of what’s happening in the economy right now. For one thing, the manufacturing sector makes up just about 11% of GDP.
Consumption makes up 68% of the economy, and we believe it’s important to capture that.
In fact, consumption was strong in Q1 and even at the start of Q2, thanks to rising real incomes. Housing is also making a turnaround and should no longer be a drag on the economy going forward (as it has been over the past 8 quarters). The Federal Reserve (Fed) is also close to being done with rate hikes. Plus, as my colleague, Ryan Detrick pointed out, the stock market’s turned around and is close to entering a new bull market.
Obviously, there are a lot of data points that we look at and one way we parse through all of it is by constructing our own leading economic index.
An LEI that better reflects the US economy
We believe our proprietary LEI better captures the dynamics of the US economy. It was developed a decade ago and is a key input into our asset allocation decisions.
In contrast to the Conference Board’s measure, it includes 20+ components, including,
Just as an example, the consumer-related data includes unemployment benefit claims, weekly hours worked, and vehicle sales. Housing includes indicators like building permits and new home sales.
- Consumer-related indicators (make up 50% of the index)
- Housing activity (18%)
- Business and manufacturing activity (23%)
- Financial markets (9%)
The chart below shows how our LEI has moved through time – capturing whether the economy is growing below trend, on-trend (a value close to zero), or above trend. Like the Conference Board’s measure, it is able to capture major turning points in the business cycle. It declined ahead of the actual start of the 2011 and 2008 recessions.
As of April, our index is indicating that the economy is growing right along trend.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Last year, the index signaled that the economy was growing below trend, and that the risk of a recession was high.
Note that it didn’t point to an actual recession. Just that “risk” of one was higher than normal. In fact, our LEI held close to the lows we saw over the last decade, especially in 2011 and 2016 (after which the economy, and even the stock market, recovered).
The following chart captures a close-up view of the last 3 and half years, which includes the Covid pullback and subsequent recovery. The contribution from the 4 major categories is also shown. You can see how the consumer has remained strong over the past year – in fact, consumer indicators have been stronger this year than in late 2022.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
The main risk of a recession last year was due to the Fed raising rates as fast as they did, which adversely impacted housing, financial markets, and business activity.
The good news is that these sectors are improving even as consumer strength continues. The improvement in housing is notable. Additionally, the drag from financial conditions is beginning to ease as we think that the Federal Reserve gets closer to the end of rate hikes, and markets rally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Another novel part of our approach is that we have an LEI like the one for the US for more than 25 other countries. Each one is custom built to capture the dynamics of those economies. The individual country LEIs are also subsequently rolled up to a global index to give us a picture of the global economy, as shown below.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
I want to emphasize that we do not rely solely on this as the one and only input into our asset allocation, portfolio and risk management decisions. While it is an important component that encapsulates a lot of significant information, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Our process also has other pillars such as policy (both monetary and fiscal), technical factors, and valuations.
We believe it’s important to put all these pieces together, kind of like putting together a puzzle, to understand what’s happening in the economy and markets, and position portfolios accordingly.
Putting together a puzzle is both a mechanistic and artistic process. The mechanistic aspect involves sorting the pieces, finding edges, and matching colors, etc. It requires a logical and methodical approach, and in our process the LEI is key to that.
However, there is an artistic element as well. As we assemble the pieces together, a larger picture gradually emerges. You can make creative decisions about how each piece fits within the overall picture. Within the context of portfolio management, that takes a diverse range of experience. Which is the core strength of our Investment Research Team.
Welcome to the New Bull Market
“If you torture numbers enough, they will tell you anything.” -Yogi Berra, Yankee great and Hall of Fame catcher
Don’t shoot the messenger, but historically, it is widely considered a new bull market once stocks are more than 20% off their bear market lows. This is similar to when stocks are down 20% they are in a bear market. Well, the S&P 500 is less than one percent away from this 20% threshold, so get ready to hear a lot about it when it eventually happens.
I’m not crazy about this concept, as we’ve been in the camp that the bear market ended in October for months now (we started to say it in late October, getting some really odd looks I might add), meaning a new bull market has been here for a while. Take another look at the great Yogi quote above, as someone can get whatever they want probably when talking about bear and bull markets.
None the less, what exactly does a 20% move higher off a bear market low really mean? The good news is future returns are quite strong.
We found 13 times that stocks soared at least 20% off a 52-week low and 10 times the lows were indeed in and not violated. The only times it didn’t work? Twice during the tech bubble implosion and once during the Financial Crisis. In other words, some of the truly worst times to be invested in stocks. But the other 10 times, once there was a 20% gain, the lows were in and in most cases, higher prices were soon coming. This chart does a nice job of showing this concept, with the red dots the times new lows were still yet to come after a 20% bounce.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
Here’s a table with all the breakdowns. A year later stocks were down only once and that was during the 2001/2002 bear market, with the average gain a year after a 20% bounce at a very impressive 17.7%. It is worth noting that the one- and three-month returns aren’t anything special, probably because some type of consolidation would be expected after surges higher, but six months and a year later are quite strong.
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
As we’ve been saying this full year, we continue to expect stocks to do well this year and the upward move is firmly in place and studies like this do little to change our opinion.
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2023.06.09 23:02 AutoModerator [Genkicourses.site] Get: ✔️ Meet Kevin – Real Estate Investing From $0 to Millionaire & Beyond ✔️ Full Course Download
![]() | ➡️https://www.genkicourses.site/product/meet-kevin-real-estate-investing-from-0-to-millionaire-beyond/⬅️ submitted by AutoModerator to GenkiCourses_Dot_Com [link] [comments] Get the course here: [Genkicourses.site] Get: ✔️ Meet Kevin – Real Estate Investing From $0 to Millionaire & Beyond ✔️ Full Course Download https://preview.redd.it/94p2x40qt15b1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4af58dabcad8d4c7cab564d1247927ffb31f1425 We can provide proof of the course's contents. We can provide a screenshot of the course's contents or send you a freebie, such as an introduction video or another video from the course, to prove that we do have the course. Should you wish to request proof, we kindly ask you to reach out to us. Please be aware that our courses do not include community access. This is due to the fact that we do not have the authority to manage this feature. Despite our desire to incorporate this aspect, it is, unfortunately, unfeasible. Explore affordable learning at Genkicourses.site 🎓! Dive into a world of quality courses handpicked just for you. Download, watch, and achieve more without breaking your budget. Description: How I Went From $0 to Millionaire & Beyond With Real Estate InvestingWhat if you could take all my real estate knowledge and download it into your mind — for you to use and for you to profit from?📷That’s why I created this program! It’s the closest way I could do that! Elon’s Neuralink isn’t out yet, so I gotta do it this way. For those who don’t know… I was just a regular guy working at Jamba Juice who has owned $20 million in real estate. Real estate has changed my life. Not many people realize that real estate investing is why I had a net worth in the millions even before I even started making any real money on YouTube. And before you think “ahh, I don’t think I have the cash right now to build my real estate portfolio”… …remember, I started from scratch. 🔰 I came from a broken, immigrant home with divorced parents. 🔰 I left home and stepped into the world with no money. 🔰 I worked several jobs (like Jamba Juice) that left me unhappy and unfulfilled. 🔰 I saved what I could and invested every penny. 🔰 My net worth was in the millions before any significant “YouTube money” I got into my first property at 19 and it instantly boosted my net worth by around $100,000. This was when I only had about $9,000 in the bank. More on how I did that later… Maybe right now investing in real estate feels out of reach. You might be in a paycheck-to-paycheck loop. I actually recommend that the first $20k you have you use towards real estate. Not trying to do stock options first which many of you are doing… Read that again… Even if your credit isn’t perfect yet, even if you have to take a higher rate, or pay mortgage insurance… you need to figure out how to get into real estate now. This way, you can build a base where you’re controlling hundreds of thousands of dollars of net worth. Or maybe you’re already well on your way to growing your real estate investments, but you want to learn ways to accelerate them and build more passive income? Would it be nice if… You could use the real estate strategies that have helped me grow my wealth even if you: ✅ Have ZERO Investing Experience. ✅ Have SOME Investing Experience. ✅ You’re Looking for Passive Income and Cashflow. ✅ You’re Looking for a Side-Hustle to Build Wealth. ✅ You’re Hunting for Deals (Including wholesaling topics!). ✅ You’re Licensed OR NOT. ✅ You Speak English (Useful Globally / Internationally). Or you are… ✅ A Brand-New Investor ($0 Net Worth) — You’ll get my step-by-step guide. ✅ A Somewhat Experienced Investor ($25,000-250,000 Net Worth). ✅ An Experienced Investor ($250,000+ Net Worth). ✅ ALSO this is extremely useful for: Agents, brokers, lenders, CPAs, & industry members (Your clients expect you know this; why not make it easy for you to make sure you do?) You’ll be able to benefit from the 360+ lifetime-access lectures no matter where you are in your journey with real estate investing. If you know me and my story, you know that I was a guy working at Jamba Juice who now has over $20 million in real estate. I was also a busboy cleaning off plates of hamburgers at Red Robin… When I became an adult, I stepped out into the world with pretty much zero money. I started with nothing and have built a net worth that to me thinking about how far I’ve come – is pretty crazy. I work now, not because I have to. I do it because I’m passionate about helping others learn from my mistakes and gain any perspectives I’ve found on my journey. When I was making those tasty drinks for thirsty customers at Jamba Juice, I secretly plotted my escape. I grew my skills, learned a ton, and started investing anything I could. Even before my YouTube income, I grew my net worth into the millions through some hard work and good financial decision-making. It’s been a while now that I could have retired and moved somewhere else with maybe a Mediterranean climate like the French Riviera or something… but I love teaching this stuff. If I had to tell you one thing about growing your net worth, it would be this: START NOW… Seriously. Don’t wait any longer to learn the principles that can help you grow your income, investments, and wealth. Start today. You need to get on the exponential net worth curve as soon as possible. The sooner you start, the better. You do not want to wait on this. So if you’re wondering… “If I wanted to start now, where would I even begin, or what would I do next?” Well, that’s why I created this course… To help you grow your net worth with the power of Real Estate Investing. I break everything down for you in an organized, easy-to-understand way. This program is about the psychology needed to succeed as a Millionaire investor for life, the art of negotiation and deal-making, and how to make passive income and cash flow. I want everyone who goes through this program to walk away feeling confident about real estate investing, dealing with sellers and buyers, inspections, renovations, hacks and pitfalls, investing methods, tax strategies and so much more. We’ll talk about shopping for real estate, valuations, and financing. We’ll cover the exact steps to START today, whether you’re starting with $0 or with $1,000,000+. If you’re already making good money, this course will help you get to that next level of wealth faster. Maybe you even want to learn how to build generational wealth where your children’s children will benefit from your investments. If any of this is interesting, then this course is for you. This course will be wide-ranging covering topics for all investors including beginner, intermediate, & advanced investing topics.
✅ Crucial Economic Principles for a Strong Foundation in Real Estate. ✅ The Mentality of a Millionaire Investor. ✅ How To Start From $0, or $20k, or $150k, or $500k ✅ Special Notes for investing at 19 vs. 30 vs. 50+ years old ✅ Different Investing methods (AirBnBs, Flips, Wholesaling, and more) ✅ Finding Deals, Financing, Negotiation and Closing ✳️ New Lectures are Regularly Added (Example: Market trends or law changes). And the goal of all this is to do it while working less, making more passive income, and finally getting onto the path to retiring early. “You want to get to the point of getting your money to work for you as soon as you can… instead of the other way around.” If you have little to no investments and don’t think you have the money to start now, but you really want to build your net worth… then don’t wait. There’s no such thing as too early with this. I know real estate can be scary. We’ll cover everything you need to know to get on the right path and have the confidence to make the right financial decisions even if you don’t have faith in your current knowledge and skills. And, if you are already making a high income and have investments, then you’re ahead of the game. This course will help you get to that next level faster and can help you accelerate your net worth to reach your financial goals sooner. This is my real life, the advice I’ve gleaned from many, the actions I’ve taken, the painful experiences and losses I’ve suffered, and the big financial wins I’ve experienced. Also, if you’re wondering, “But Kevin, is now a good time to invest?” The training in this course is important no matter what the economic conditions are. Even if the market is super heated, there are always deals to be found. It’s about knowing where to look and what to look for. |
2023.06.09 23:01 MrBKainXTR r/TheLastAirbender (and other avatar subs) will be going dark from June 12-14 in protest against Reddit's API changes