Those latest earnings forecast, are implying an economic soft-landing, not an outright severe recession. Historically, the SP500 EPS change during a recession was a decline in the high teens. That said, with the SP500 losing nearly a quarter of its value YTD, investors clearly have embraced less robust prospective earnings than what the consensus estimate is suggesting. […more]
Looking Back and Forward Recap of 22Q2: During the 2nd quarter, US equity markets lost 17% of their value, with comparable declines between the Large and SMID market capitalizations. Underpinning the big declines are: 1) accelerating inflation, 2) lost confidence in the Fed’s ability to tame inflation, 3) growing fear that a US recession, or worse long-lasting stagflation is inevitable. […more]
First released 4-6-2022 Recapping the quarter: Looking back at the first quarter of 2022, January was largely a traditional risk-off month when the SP500 index lost nearly 10% of its value by January 27, driven […more]
Looking back: both the US economy and corporate America earnings were much stronger in 2021 than initial expectations.
Looking forward: Equities will likely face volatility in the months ahead, however, higher interest rates are not a death spell to the equity market. Higher interest rates are good for the US economy right now, and what is good for the economy will eventually be good for corporate America.
Looking into the next couple of quarters, we expect US economic growth to remain strong. Consumers’ balance sheets remain in great shape and more workers will be returning to the labor force. Purchases delayed due to supply constraints or availability issues will likely be pushed to 2022, resulting in more even economic growth rates in 2021 and 2022, rather than showing a big fall off next year as previously expected. […more]
Corporate America is chugging along and reporting strong earnings. For the SP500 index, 87% of its members have reported actual 21Q1 EPS above estimates, well above the five-year average of 74%. In aggregate, SP500 companies’ […more]
We stressed in our 20Q4 newsletter that over longer time horizons, since the mid-90s, Large and Growth factors have not consistently generated alpha. This observation was quickly proven true YTD, as Large and Growth significantly lagged Small and Value. While those traditionally defined style factors are helpful in explaining short-term performance, we believe in the long term, it is valuation that delivers alpha. […more]
Incorporating the latest 10 Yr US Treasury yield into our market derived discount rate calculation, the Equity Risk Premium (ERP) per our estimates, is currently at ~6.8% for nonfinancial US firms in nominal terms, significantly higher than the historical median and average of ~4.5%. With the risk free rate historically low, equity investors seem to be demanding a fair amount of protection, though the market appears overvalued despite the high ERP. […more]
In the spring and early summer, many were baffled how the equity market could engineer such a rally while the US economy was still free falling into a pit of fast declining consumption and a […more]
In June, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared the US fell into a recession in February, ending its record 128-month long economic expansion. This could also be the shortest recession in the US history, […more]
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