July 28, 2016 Dear Client: Who would have thought that the U.S. stock market would rally to all time record highs amidst the many problems confronting investors? Some of the more serious issues include slow global economic growth, flat S&P 500 earnings for 12 straight quarters, Brexit, increasing geopolitical risks which have been largely unaddressed, widespread populism throughout most of the developed world and the growing support for political extremists, our Presidential election and the recent escalation of domestic social unrest. More about these problems later. We think there are two primary reasons driving equity prices higher: 1) the massive pool of liquidity sourced from the ongoing global savings glut and the very accommodative monetary policies in place at most of the world’s central banks. All of this excess liquidity combined with extreme risk aversion has driven both long and short term interest rates to historically low levels; and 2) U.S. equity valuations, while not compelling in the absolute or relative to those in most international markets, are very attractive relative to fixed income alternatives. LIQUIDITY The world is awash in liquidity and bank deposits, as the desire to save has exceeded investment demand for years.
CHART I SURFEIT OF SAVINGS
Source: BCA Research
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Savings gluts, particularly in Asia, Germany and a few other countries, have created huge current account surpluses among these high savings economies which are then recycled back into the global capital markets. These markets clear by adjusting interest rates, driving them lower. Private sector capital spending per capita has been declining for decades while public sector spending has been insufficient (so far) to absorb the excess savings. Consequently, long rates have been in a 35‐year secular decline. Insufficient investment demand has led to slower growth and has been a major driver of global deflationary pressures.
CHART II DECLINING GLOBAL CAPEX
Source: BCA Research
Most investors have been predicting the bottoming of long term rates, including ourselves. Nor are we aware of anyone who predicted that they would decline to today’s historically low levels. Current consensus believes rates have bottomed. If they have, we doubt they’re going to rise rapidly.
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CHART III
HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?
Source: BCA Research
Global monetary policy remains highly accommodative which is keeping a lid on the already very low level of short term rates. According to ISI, the aggregate balance sheets of The Federal Reserve, ECB and the Bank of Japan have increased by a whopping $8 trillion since 2009 to $11 trillion. This global quantitative easing dwarfs the supply of bonds for sale creating bidding wars and driving long term rates lower.
CHART IV AGGREGATE BALANCE SHEETS: FED, ECB, BOJ
Source: ISI
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The neutral policy rate (the rate consistent with stable inflation and full employment) is now negative in many countries. The real Fed Funds rate in the U.S. averaged +1% over the past business cycle and is now negative as well. These record low levels of neutral rates are a direct consequence of inadequate demand that in turn, has driven and defined the lingering global deflationary pressures.
CHART V THE NEUTRAL RATE HAS FALLEN
Source: BCA
The extended period of excess global savings and highly accommodative central bank policies have combined to drive both long and short term rates to record low levels. Who could have possibly thought that 58% of the pool of non‐U.S. sovereign bond capital would carry negative yields as is the case today? Long term interest rates have approximated the growth rate of nominal GDP in most global markets throughout history. Currently, long term rates are well below nominal GDP growth and have been for some time. Also, most bond valuation models, including the IMF’s, suggest bonds are very pricey. However, we think it will be a long, slow path to equilibrium valuation levels given the excess liquidity conditions, sluggish and challenged global growth, low inflation and extreme risk aversion.
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CHART VI
BOND VALUATIONS
Source: BCA Research
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Not surprisingly, fixed income investors have extended the duration of their portfolios to near record levels:
CHART VII FIXED INCOME INVESTORS: NEAR RECORD LONG POSITIONS
Source: BCA Research
The record low levels of interest rates have pushed investors to scramble for “yield” and recently, equities have become the asset of choice. The S&P 500 dividend yield is now greater than that of the 30‐year Treasury bond. And that makes no sense unless the level of risk aversion has evolved into a panic phase or alternatively, one believes there will be no appreciation in the S&P 500 Index over the next 30 years. The environment that would produce that outcome is too dire to contemplate.
July 28, 2016 Page 7
CHART VIII
30‐YEAR BOND YIELDS AND S&P 500 DIVIDEND YIELDS
Source: BCA Research
Less‐than‐AAA credit grade bond yields have declined significantly this year as credit fears have receded. Baa yields (around 4.15% as we write) are very close to their lowest level in the modern era. Despite stocks’ recent move to record highs, the collapse in Baa yields (a more realistic fixed income alternative to Treasuries in our view) leaves the bond with inferior future return prospects relative to those of equities. The S&P 500 earnings yield (EPS/Price) exceeds the Baa bond yield and is now in the top quartile of equities’ relative advantage over the past 60 years.
CHART IX S&P 500 EARNINGS YIELD MINUS Baa YIELD
Source: ISI
July 28, 2016 Page 8
Based on relative valuations alone, one can make a decent case for owning equities in a number of non‐U.S. markets. However, the relative fundamental outlook in each market must be assessed as well as valuation. And the U.S. stands out in terms of its economic strength, transparent and liquid markets and superior profitability.
CHART X THE U.S. IS MORE EXPENSIVE
Source: BCA Research
July 28, 2016 Page 9
A simplistic view of equity valuations contrasts the current S&P 500 EPS/Price ratio with its average over the past 90 years, while ignoring their fluctuation during different cycles of economic strength, inflation and interest rates. The current forward P/E is slightly higher than that average. However, during periods when inflation has ranged between 1% and 3%, as is the case today, the S&P 500 P/E has averaged 16.7x. This is about where it’s priced currently. While that’s clearly not a compelling case for equities, it in no way supports a negative view based on absolute valuation alone. Despite the post‐Brexit rally in many equity markets, investors remain very risk averse. Blackrock’s Larry Fink, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager, recently described the mood of their client base: “They are afraid and are pulling back. But they are also concerned about how much cash they have and how they’re going to earn a decent return on it.” No wonder. In the U.S., China and Japan alone, total bank deposits are a massive $55 trillion. Investors continue to pull money out of actively managed domestic equities and are parking it in cash and bonds bearing little or no yield and into passive equity products. According to Empirical Research Partners, active domestic equity managers, including hedge funds, have experienced $2 trillion of net redemptions since 2008. Almost half (43%) of these redemptions have been reallocated to passive products.
CHART XI ACTIVELY MANAGED U.S. EQUITIES NET OUTFLOWS
2008 THROUGH MAY 2016
Source: Empirical Research Partners
The net outflows from actively managed U.S. equity products have continued in 2016. In June alone, active domestic fund managers suffered net redemptions of $27 billion, the largest monthly outflow since October 2008, the height of the financial panic. Passive index funds and ETF’s continued to benefit from the flight from active strategies as their net inflows totaled $29.2 billion for the month.
July 28, 2016 Page 10
The Leuthold Group notes there have been four periods over the past 25 years when active strategies out‐performed passive strategies and four periods when passive strategies led. Callan Associates produced Chart XII that tracks the cyclicality of Large Cap domestic managers’ performance relative to the S&P 500 Index. A rising line coincides with most active managers under‐performing the index while a declining line indicates the opposite. Passive strategies have been the clear winners over the past 19 months and also in four of the past five years. The last time large cap domestic equity managers suffered this magnitude of under‐performance was during the Tech Bubble in the late ‘90’s. We know how that ended for the indexers. Investors, in many ways, are lemmings. They operate in the rearview mirror and chase what’s worked recently and that, of course, is passive strategies. As discussed above, the outflows from active managers and into passive products have been huge for a long time. This consensus view, if anything, is now about as extreme as it gets. We have no idea when the cycle of relative performance will reverse. But we are very confident that it will.
CHART XII RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF ACTIVE STRATEGIES
Source: Leuthold Group
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And gold is getting a play as investors are betting that the global chaos will only get worse. The SPDR Gold Trust pulled in $12.2 billion in net inflows in the first half, more than all U.S. stock ETF’s combined in the same period. To the extent investors are buying domestic equities, they’re buying the perceived “safe” stocks—consumer staples, utilities and higher yielding issues. Not surprisingly, these favorites have very high correlations with the price of the 10‐year Treasury Bond, the major beneficiary of the flight to safety. Those issues with the lowest correlations to the bond are more cyclically sensitive and/or perceived to be more speculative. The high correlation group sells at an 11% premium to the market, ranking it in most expensive decile of valuations over the past 63 years. The low R‐squared issues sell at a 27% discount to the market, a relative valuation that has only been lower 2% of the time during that period. This is a magnitude of disparity worth exploiting.
CHART XIII HIGHEST AND LOWEST RETURN CORRELATIONS WITH 10‐YEAR TREASURIES
Source: Empirical Research Partners
The following chart produced by UBS sums it all up. Global risk aversion has spiked despite the massive central bank stimulus and a domestic economy that appears to be strengthening. The UBS measure of Risk Aversion is now approaching its post‐Financial Crisis high.
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CHART XIV
RISK AVERSION IS HIGHLY ELEVATED
Source: UBS
The dichotomy between record highs in equity markets and all the very visible signs of risk aversion seems very counter intuitive. There’s no question that there is plenty to worry about—but there always is. Perhaps our current “worry list,” or tail risks in the industry vernacular, is longer and potentially more damaging if the worst materializes. While there’s no shortage of things to worry about, we identify five potential areas of risk, each of which has a non‐trivial chance of surfacing and inflicting major economic and market damage.
1. THE ECONOMY AND PROFITS
The U.S. economy is “ok” according to ISI’s company surveys, and some forecasters now think that growth will pickup in the second half. The more optimistic projections have been supported by the strong retail sales report in June that if accurate, could lift second quarter consumption to a +4.5% annual rate, which would be the largest gain in over a decade. Having said that, we doubt our underlying real GDP growth rate is any better than 2‐2.5%. That’s not bad but not great either. The risks are likely to the downside as the business sector remains very cautious in the midst of all the uncertainty. Global growth remains sluggish. And it hasn’t been helped by Brexit. Clearly, the biggest deflationary impact will be felt by the U.K. but not limited to the island nation. The IMF estimates that global growth will be lowered by 0.1‐0.3% over the next two years if Brexit is implemented. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s a drag when total global growth is as low as it is. There are many pockets of vulnerability including the Italian banks, lagging Chinese private sector growth, its highly leveraged Shadow Banking system and the weak Yuan.
July 28, 2016 Page 13
U.S. corporate profits probably moved higher in the second quarter after three years of stagnation. Analysts have lifted their earnings forecasts aggressively in response to the better second quarter reports. But we think these expectations are too optimistic. Profit margins are near peak levels and wages have been increasing steadily which could make margins vulnerable.
CHART XV U.S. EARNINGS EXPECTATIONS TOO OPTIMISTIC
Source: BCA
Stocks are not going much higher from these levels without some help from earnings growth. We’ll get some, but how much is another story.
2. WHEN ARE THE FED’S RATE HIKES COMING?
Investor anxiety surrounding the prospective rate hikes is elevated. Not surprising, given that the Fed is behaving like a day trader, reacting to what seems like every new data release and is now hinting at a September Fed Funds rate increase. We’re not all that concerned—for now. We don’t think the pace of economic activity and the elevated level of risk support a very hawkish monetary stance. Plus, inflation, so far, remains tame at a sub‐2% rate. The S&P 500 Index has, on the average, peaked 30 months after the first rate hike. And the average gain in the index 12 months following that first increase has been +9.5%. We have no reason to believe that this tightening experience would be much different. Unless, of course, some of the other risk concerns discussed here materialize in a major way.
July 28, 2016 Page 14
3. POPULISM AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION A recent Real Clear Politics poll concluded that 69% of the American public believes the country is on the wrong track. The last time we experienced this level of dissatisfaction was during the 1970’s. McKinsey reports that real incomes of 65‐70% of families in the developed world have declined. That’s 540 million people. Many believe the Federal Government has been dysfunctional, economic growth lethargic and income and wealth inequality unacceptable, leaving them disadvantaged. Consequently, populism, not only here but abroad as well, is flourishing. This has led to widespread distrust of the establishment and resentment of elitism. The public’s revulsion for many types of governmental institutions—the Federal Government, Presidents, and Congress regardless of party—is shockingly pervasive. One British Minister of Parliament commented that his constituency is telling him that they are tired of the so‐called experts telling them what to do because their prescriptions just make things worse. Trust in the traditional professions is also at a low point. These include Wall Street (of course), major corporations, the mainstream media, the academy, hospitals and any other entity or group that benefits from its sheer size. This has led to the rise in populist‐friendly politicians advocating many unorthodox policy solutions, most notably Trump and Sanders in the United States. Outside this country, populist politicians include Marine La Pen, Geert Wilders and Nigel Farage on the right and Die Linke in Germany, Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain on the left. Political pandering to increasing populist pressure, which is pervasive in both of our political parties, is perhaps the single biggest impediment to future economic growth and real incomes. Populism has spawned a decisive pendulum swing in attitudes opposing the free trade of goods and labor. This will lead to a more hostile environment for business investment, negatively impacting an already weak trend in productivity. Brexit should be a wakeup call to governments around the world. We can no longer ignore the unbalanced and growing inequality in income and wealth since the Financial Crisis. Inequality is a complex issue affected by technology, globalization, skill/education mismatches and very troubling social trends. What we do know, the disaffected are demanding to be heard. 4. GEOPOLITICS This is not the venue for a comprehensive discussion on this topic nor are we qualified to do so. But unfortunately, geopolitical risks are growing in both scope and magnitude throughout most of the world.
ISIS may now be losing the ground war—slowly—but it has countered with an alarming increase in terrorist attacks on soft targets, mostly in Western nations. These attacks are making a difference in terms of economic impact and of course, are substantially elevating anxiety among the citizenry.
Iran continues to advance its objectives of developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems, undeterred by a flawed agreement. Russia, China and North Korea press forward with their ambitions, showing little or no hint of becoming better global citizens. One never would have believed a couple of years ago during its period of economic success that Turkey would be spinning apart as it is today. Erdogan, an Islamist, is steadily moving the country away from the secularism that prevailed during its years of prosperity. This could end badly.
July 28, 2016 Page 15
The long period of time following World War II when the United States was the undisputed hegemon, are over. We now live in a multi‐polar, geopolitical world. And multi‐polarity defined the 1930’s during which a number of charismatic leaders, persuasively advocating extreme nationalism, led the world into one of the most deadly periods in human history. The world is a very dangerous place and a meaningful geopolitical risk premium is warranted.
CHART XVI
GEOPOLITICAL RISK PREMIUM WARRANTED
Source: BCA
5. SOCIAL UNREST
The deadly domestic conflicts over the past year are increasingly reminding us of the horrible period that defined much of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Today’s rhetoric is very similar. The good news is that the violence hasn’t been as institutionalized as it was then—yet. The nation became very splintered at that time, and we could be heading there now. It is very difficult to see a path to resolution, but it is critical that we find one. We fear this growing conflict will not end quickly or easily. This is just another very serious issue stirring anxiety and uncertainty and raising the appetite for even more risk aversion.
July 28, 2016 Page 16
We haven’t really changed our outlook for global economic growth and the performance of capital markets over the next five years. Both will be challenged. One shouldn’t expect more than mid‐single digit returns for the U.S. equity markets with much of it coming from dividend income. But that will beat bonds and cash. However, we think the gravity of the potential tail risks and their probability of occurrence have risen. Equity risk premiums will remain elevated, tilting the return risks to the downside. Money can be made in actively managed equity strategies, but it will be challenging. Passive strategies have enjoyed the overwhelming endorsement of the consensus over a number of years. Over confidence in anything seldom ends well. Best regards, Timothy G. Dalton, Jr. Chairman