If you are an investor, trader, or financial advisor, there is only one word in the English language today:
Yield
That is my conclusion after speaking to readers on my 12 day, 11 state, 8 city US tour.
Having underperformed the indexes and posted negative returns for the last two years, many money managers are now facing the bleak prospect of delivering losses for a third year in a row.
That is, unless, they have the good fortune to read the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader. However, even I have been hard pressed to deliver my usual double-digit returns. This year I have delivered the slowest start to a year since I started the business eight years ago.
Brokerage clients are fed up. They would rather earn nothing on their cash than write another check to the market. That means firing their manager, dumping their ETFs, and running up the white flag of surrender.
That is why the bounce back in shares in February was so frenetic and violent. The window for a good entry point opened so briefly that if you blinked, you missed it.
US stocks are now the world?s preeminent high yield asset, with top quality shares boasting 2-5% dividend yields. The bottom line is that portfolio managers have to buy stocks or lose their jobs.
This is no easy task. S&P 500 earnings multiples at 19X are at a decade high. This is against a postwar range of 9-24X.
They have achieved this lofty height while Q1 GDP growth forecasts have been chopped from 2.3% to a mere 0.50%, thanks to the weakness imported from Europe, China, and Japan.
If you recognize this as an ugly picture you would be right. Managers have the choice now of buying stocks and committing suicide, or not buying stocks and committing suicide.
And Solomon thought he had a hard time making a decision!
This is why I am employing every risk avoidance measure I know of, like keeping 80%-90% of my assets in cash, and playing the indexes instead of single names.
Fortunately,it is not like the world is completely devoid of opportunities. Gold has been a reliable earner. Buy every $50 dip in the barbarous relic.
High quality REIT?s and Master Limited Partnerships are still offering double digit yields, and some of the biggest spreads over cash in history.
Emerging markets and commodities have probably entered new long term bull markets, but I wouldn?t necessary buy them today.
Blame our current conundrum on negative interest rates, which are blowing up traders? models everywhere. It?s not like you can say ?Well, the last time we had negative interest rates? because we?ve never had them before.
Even though NIRP isn?t in the US yet, the effects from Europe and Japan are being felt around the world.
To end this letter on an upbeat note, I think the markets are setting up for a monster rally in the fall. Removal of election uncertainty will be a big factor. The last time a Clinton was elected, stocks rose 400% in eight years.
Hillary could do the same, especially with a huge demographic tailwind of big spending Millennials kicking in in a few years.
The move to a carbon free economy that eventually leads to nearly free energy, hyper accelerating technology and health care advances will give all risk assets more of a push than Bill ever got.
Ready for a Repeat?
