Remember this time last year? The markets opened with a nosedive in Chinese stocks. By the time New York came in for trading, China was already down 7% and trading had been halted. That started, what turned out to be, the worst opening stretch of a New Year in the history of the U.S. stock market.
The sirens were sounding and people were gripping for what they thought was going to be a disastrous year. And then, later that month, oil slid from the mid $30s to the mid $20s and finally people began to realize it wasn’t China they should be worried about, it was oil. The oil price crash was a ticking time bomb, about to unleash mass bankruptcies on the energy industry and threaten a “round two” of global financial crisis.
What happened? Central banks stepped in. On February 11th, the Bank of Japan intervened in the currency markets, buying dollars/selling yen. What did they do with those dollars? They must have bought oil, in one form or another. Oil bottomed that day. China soon followed with a move to boost bank lending, relieving some fears of a global liquidity crunch. The ECB upped its QE program and cut rates. And then the Fed followed up by taking two of their projected four rate hikes off of the table (of which they ended up moving just once on the year).
What a difference a year makes.
There’s a clear shift in the environment, away from a world on liquidity-driven life support/ and toward structural, growth-oriented change.
With that, there’s a growing sense of optimism in the air that we haven’t seenin ten years. Even many of the pros that have constantly been waiting for the next “shoe to drop” (for years) have gone quiet.
Global markets have started the year behaving very well. And despite the near tripling from the 2009 bottom in the stock market, money is just in the early stages of moving out of bonds and cash, and back into stocks. Following the election in November, we are coming into the year with TWO consecutive record monthly inflows into the U.S. stock market based on ETF flows from November and December.
The tone has been set by U.S. markets, and we should see the rest of the world start to play catch up (including emerging markets). But this development was already underway before the election.
Remember, I talked about European stocks quite a bit back in October. While U.S. stocks have soared to new record highs, German stocks have lagged dramatically and have offered one of the more compelling opportunities.
Here’s the chart we looked at back in October, where I said “after being down more than 20% earlier this year, German stocks are within 1.5% of turning green on the year, and technically breaking to the upside“…
And here’s the latest chart…
You can see, as you look to the far right of the chart, it’s been on a tear. Adding fuel to that fire, the eurozone economic data is beginning to show signs that a big bounce may be coming. A pop in U.S. growth would only bolster that.
And a big bounce back in euro zone growth this year would be a very valuabledefense against another populist backlash against the establishment (first Grexit, then Brexit, then Trump). Nationalist movements in Germany and France are huge threats to the EU and euro (the common currency). Another round of potential break-up of the euro would be destabilizing for the global economy.
With that, as we enter the year with the ammunition to end the decade long economy rut, there are still hurdles to overcome. Along with Trump/China frictions, the French and German elections are the other clear and present dangers ahead that could dull the efficacy of Trumponomics.
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Yesterday was the deadline for all big investors to submit, to the SEC, a public snapshot of their portfolios for the quarter ended June 30th.
On that note, as we’ve discussed, this information is covered hot and heavy by the media. You often see headlines like these (these are actual headlines from yesterday): “Activist hedge fund ValueAct takes about 2 percent stake in Morgan Stanley” or “George Soros sells off Apple stake during the second quarter.”
On the above stories, if you own Morgan Stanley should you feel good about it? Conversely, if you own Apple, should you be worried? The heavy coverage of the topic both online and on television implies “yes” to both, which likely gets the average investor stirring. But there’s never context given as to whether or not the information is meaningful, and there’s never evidence given as to what the results tend to be for those that follow. The reason is, it requires a lot of hard work, experience, ingenuity and proprietary research to draw any conclusions from the information.
Still, it’s safe to assume the UK event had considerable influence on the holdings of the world’s biggest investors. Global markets swung violently on the news back in June. Remember, between June 23rd and June 27th, the S&P 500 fell as much as 5.7%. It made it all back the subsequent four days.
So given the timing of the portfolio snapshot with the Brexit fears, let’s talk about Apple, the most widely held stock in the world and the largest constituent in the market cap weighted S&P 500. The headlines were scrolling fast and furious on Apple yesterday, following the filings from billionaire investors David Einhorn, George Soros and Chase Coleman – all of which sold Apple shares in the quarter. Now, it’s important to understand that these funds can trade Apple with virtual anonymity between quarters. The stock is too large for anyone one investor to take a 5% “activist” stake, which would trigger the requirement of a 13D filing with the SEC, which would require updated filings (or amendments) within 10 days of any change in the position size (sell one share, you have to report it).
On that note, let’s start some perspective on Einhorn’s Apple stake: Going into the second quarter Einhorn’s biggest position, by far, was Apple. He had 15% of his fund in the stock (a huge position). It would only make since that he would trim the position and neutralize some risk into an uncertain macro event. In fact, in his second quarter letter, Einhorn brags that they have done a good job of “trading” Apple (i.e. managing the downside). Still, as of the end of Q2, Apple was a very large position, at 12% of his fund.
What about the tech investing genius billionaire Chase Coleman? Coleman had 9% of his $7 billion fund (long public equities) in Apple going into the second quarter. By the end, he had cut it by 75%. Again, playing defense into Brexit. Apple stock is 16% higher than it traded on June 30. Coleman may very well have put the full position back on since the June 30 snapshot (likely).
George Soros? First, we should note that Soros is the world’s best global macro investor. He’s an agile investor that will load up on a theme and just as quickly reverse course and position for another probable outcome. For a career, Soros’ bread has been buttered betting on the unexpected outcome. That’s where the big wins come. Brexit was unexpected, thus his trimming of Apple, the stock with the biggest contribution to his view on a slide in the S&P 500.
And then we have arguably the greatest investor of all-time, Warren Buffett. While others ran from Apple, Buffett increased his stake by more than 55%. Why? Buffett has made his living for more than 50 years buying good companies when everyone else is selling. As he says, “be greedy when others are fearful.”
That’s a sliver of perspective on the popular 13F filings of the past few days. As I said yesterday, the presence of a big investor in a stock is rarely valuable information. Only a small percentage of those reporting investors have the powerful combination of size, influence and portfolio concentration to make their presence alone a potential catalyst for change in a company/and a repricing of the stock.
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As we’ve discussed over the past few months, markets can be wrong—sometimes very wrong.
On that note, consider that the yield on the U.S. ten–year Treasury was trading closer to 2.30% after the Fed’s first rate hike last December—the first hike in nearly ten years and the symbolic move away from the emergency zero interest rate policy. The ten–year yield has, incredulously, traded as low as 1.53% since. One end of that spectrum is wrong, very wrong.
Remember, as we headed into the last Fed meeting, the ten–year yield was trading just shy of 2% (after a wild ride down from the December hike date). And the communication to that point from the Fed was to expect FOUR rate hikes in 2016.
Of course, in the face of another global economic crisis threat, which was driven by the oil price bust, the Fed did their part and backed off of that forecast—taking two of those hikes off of the table. Still, yields under 2% with even two hikes projected seemed mispriced.
So following a dramatic 85% bounce in oil prices and the threat of cheap oil now behind us (seemingly), as of yesterday afternoon yields still stood around just 1.79%. That’s more than a 1/2 percentage point lower than the levels immediately following the December hike. And that’s AFTER two voting Fed members just said on Tuesday that they should go two or threetimes this year. So with global risks abating, the Fed is beginning to walk back up expectations for Fed hikes.
Confirming that, as of yesterday afternoon, the minutes from the most recent Fed meeting have been disclosed, which now indicate that a June hike is likely assuming things continue along the current path (i.e. no global shock risks emerge).
Still, the yield on the ten–year Treasury is just 1.84%, 5 basis points higher than it was yesterday morning, prior to the Fed minutes.
Why?
The bet is that the Fed is making a mistake raising rates (at all). But at these levels for the ten–year yield, it’s a very asymmetric bet. The downside for yields here is very limited (short of a global apocalypse), the upside is very big. That makes betting on lower yields a very dangerous one, if not a dumb one. When people are positioned the wrong way in asymmetric trades, the adverse moves tend to be violent. I wouldn’t be surprised to see 2.50% on the U.S. ten–year Treasury by the year end.
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