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Liquidity and Valuations – The Cornerstones of Investing

The bull market surge in 2020 and 2021, followed by the bear market swoon, are great reminders that liquidity and valuations are critical to managing wealth…

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The bull market surge in 2020 and 2021, followed by the bear market swoon, are great reminders that liquidity and valuations are critical to managing wealth effectively. Unfortunately, most investors pay too much attention to one or the other, but not both.

Those assessing liquidity conditions and tracking valuations were prepared for the bullish stampede of 2021 and understood the risks that ensued when easy monetary and fiscal policy tides ebbed. Most others were left in the bull’s dust or are being ravaged by the bear.   

We share our views on portfolio management to better appreciate the value of both liquidity and valuations. Further, we highlight our recent portfolio management activity to show how we navigated through the changing liquidity situation this year.

Our Perspectives on Valuations and Liquidity

Valuations help investors gauge the potential downside risk and upside potential in a stock or market. At the same time, assessing liquidity conditions, including technical analysis, defining short-term trends, and helping with timing and asset selection.

Today’s Environment – Liquidity

Current liquidity conditions dictate conservatism. The Fed is aggressively raising interest rates and reducing its balance sheet. Further, fiscal spending is falling well short of that in the prior two years. As a result, liquidity is exiting the financial markets, which augurs a bearish trend. As we wrote in the Don’t Fight The Fed:

“For example, nine months ago, the upward trend started to flatten. At the time, inflation was rising rapidly, and the Fed began talking about interest rate hikes. Since the initial expectations were for small rate hikes and no QT, the trend flattening and ultimate shift toward a downward direction was gradual. Since then, the downward trend has steepened as Fed rhetoric has grown increasingly hawkish.”

Until investors believe the Fed will reverse from its hawkish policy or at least be less hawkish, the trend for equity markets is likely lower. Given the hostile political environment and coming elections, it’s highly unlikely new fiscal stimulus will override that opinion.

Today’s Environment – Valuations

Having established that a downward trend is likely due to liquidity conditions, let’s now consider how far down the market can decline.

To help assess current valuations and create a range of potential outcomes, we use the S&P 500 CAPE P/E valuations. Similar analysis with other valuation methods provides a broader range of possible results.   

In late 2021, most valuation measures were at or near record levels. For instance, CAPE on the S&P 500 was nearly 40, over twice its historical average. In the last 140 years, CAPE was only higher for a brief period before the 2000 tech crash.

By late 2021, many valuation techniques required price declines of 30% to 60% to reach longer-term average valuations. In some cases, 80% declines were needed to get to the lower end of historical valuations.  

We are not fearmongering, but consider that CAPE fell to seven in the bear market and recession of 1981-1982. That was the last time with comparable inflation as today. Assuming no change in earnings, the S&P 500 would have to drop to 925 to reach a CAPE of 7!

This year’s 20% price drawdown is mainly responsible for the CAPE falling from nearly 40 in late 2021 to 28, as shown below.

Valuation Risk Reward Ranges

To establish a reasonable risk-reward range, we use daily S&P 500 price data back to 1950. Further, we exclude data outside of one standard deviation of the average. This exercise incorporates about two-thirds of the data.

The CAPE on the S&P 500 can return to prior highs or reach single-digit lows. As such, we understand this increases the odds that our risk/reward range in this article is not wide enough.

To create our “risk range,” we calculate the current S&P 500 price that would bring the CAPE to its average, minimum, and maximum. As shown below, the S&P 500 would fall to 2647 (-32%) to reach its long-term average CAPE. More concerning, despite the recent drawdown, it sits above the upper band. A 5% decline gets it back within its historical band. The most significant risk is the S&P 500 falls to reach its lower band at 1584.   

risk reward channel

As mentioned above, the analysis is conservative as we only use a CAPE range of 12-28 to calculate the range. The second flaw is that we do not account for changing earnings.  

Below we show that earnings typically fall 10% to 25% during recessions. The last three recessions saw greater than average declines. Lower earnings, all else equal, increase CAPE valuations. However, CAPE uses an average of the previous ten years of earnings. As such, the effect of a few bad quarters or even a year or two does not significantly change the risk range.

earnings drawdowns risk reward

Our Recent Experience

Through 2021, valuations rose well above norms, and the S&P 500 was moderately above the upper band. While such an environment was concerning, we knew that fiscal and monetary liquidity were flowing at unprecedented levels. Despite robust economic growth and increasing inflation, Jerome Powell was “not even thinking about thinking about raising rates.” The liquidity spigots were flowing full blast, and liquidity conditions drove asset prices much higher, valuations be damned.

As the year ended and 2022 began, the Fed was starting to worry inflation was not as transitory as initially thought. Massive doses of Fed liquidity were coming into question. Further, political dissension put a cap on further pandemic/economic fiscal spending. Plentiful fiscal and monetary liquidity conditions were about to make an abrupt U-turn.

RIA Advisors Portfolio Management 2021 and 2022

Our equity exposure in late 2021 reflected the bullish technical condition, positive liquidity assessment, and strong investor sentiment. Many times in the fourth quarter, we were overweight stock exposure versus our benchmark. Further, many of our stocks had betas greater than the market.

Sensing the Fed was about to pull the liquidity rug from the markets, we started reducing our risk starting on the first trading day of 2022. Not only did we sell shares to reduce our gross equity exposure, but we rotated from higher beta growth stocks to lower beta value stocks.

The graph below shows our beta-adjusted exposure went from 11.48% above our benchmark on December 31, 2021, to 21.36% below at the end of June. The change was a function of selling assets and reducing our weighted average beta from an above-market 1.10 to below-market .87.  

ria advisors risk beta exposure benchmark

Summary

No one has a crystal ball, but the tools to better recognize price trends and form risk/reward expectations exist and are easy to follow.

As long as the Fed focuses heavily on taming inflation with aggressive monetary policy, we should expect a bearish trend. We monitor inflation closely to evaluate how the Fed may adjust monetary policy for changes in inflation. We will reconsider our position when the Fed starts to ease off its hawkish rhetoric.

The post Liquidity and Valuations – The Cornerstones of Investing appeared first on RIA.

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat"…

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat" to the health of the US population - a sharp decline from a high of 67% in July 2020.

(SARMDY/Shutterstock)

What's more, the Pew Research Center survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that just 10% of Americans are concerned that they will  catch the disease and require hospitalization.

"This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health," reads the report, which was published March 7.

According to the survey, half of the participants understand the significance of researchers and healthcare providers in understanding and treating long COVID - however 27% of participants consider this issue less important, while 22% of Americans are unaware of long COVID.

What's more, while Democrats were far more worried than Republicans in the past, that gap has narrowed significantly.

"In the pandemic’s first year, Democrats were routinely about 40 points more likely than Republicans to view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population. This gap has waned as overall levels of concern have fallen," reads the report.

More via the Epoch Times;

The survey found that three in ten Democrats under 50 have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older.

Moreover, 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while only 24 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older have done so.

“This 42-point partisan gap is much wider now than at other points since the start of the outbreak. For instance, in August 2021, 93 percent of older Democrats and 78 percent of older Republicans said they had received all the shots needed to be fully vaccinated (a 15-point gap),” it noted.

COVID-19 No Longer an Emergency

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued its updated recommendations for the virus, which no longer require people to stay home for five days after testing positive for COVID-19.

The updated guidance recommends that people who contracted a respiratory virus stay home, and they can resume normal activities when their symptoms improve overall and their fever subsides for 24 hours without medication.

“We still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses, this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.

The CDC said that while the virus remains a threat, it is now less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease.

Importantly, states and countries that have already adjusted recommended isolation times have not seen increased hospitalizations or deaths related to COVID-19,” it stated.

The federal government suspended its free at-home COVID-19 test program on March 8, according to a website set up by the government, following a decrease in COVID-19-related hospitalizations.

According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 and influenza diseases remain “elevated” but are decreasing in some parts of the United States.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 22:45

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Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says “I Would Support”

Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says "I Would Support"

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump…

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Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run - Musk Says "I Would Support"

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump into the race to become the next Senate GOP leader, and Elon Musk was quick to support the idea. Republicans must find a successor for periodically malfunctioning Mitch McConnell, who recently announced he'll step down in November, though intending to keep his Senate seat until his term ends in January 2027, when he'd be within weeks of turning 86. 

So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota. While John Barrasso's name had been thrown around as one of "The Three Johns" considered top contenders, the Wyoming senator on Tuesday said he'll instead seek the number two slot as party whip. 

Paul used X to tease his potential bid for the position which -- if the GOP takes back the upper chamber in November -- could graduate from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. He started by telling his 5.1 million followers he'd had lots of people asking him about his interest in running...

...then followed up with a poll in which he predictably annihilated Cornyn and Thune, taking a 96% share as of Friday night, with the other two below 2% each. 

Elon Musk was quick to back the idea of Paul as GOP leader, while daring Cornyn and Thune to follow Paul's lead by throwing their names out for consideration by the Twitter-verse X-verse. 

Paul has been a stalwart opponent of security-state mass surveillance, foreign interventionism -- to include shoveling billions of dollars into the proxy war in Ukraine -- and out-of-control spending in general. He demonstrated the latter passion on the Senate floor this week as he ridiculed the latest kick-the-can spending package:   

In February, Paul used Senate rules to force his colleagues into a grueling Super Bowl weekend of votes, as he worked to derail a $95 billion foreign aid bill. "I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” said Paul. “If it takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”

Don't expect a Majority Leader Paul to ditch the filibuster -- he's been a hardy user of the legislative delay tactic. In 2013, he spoke for 13 hours to fight the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. In 2015, he orated for 10-and-a-half-hours to oppose extension of the Patriot Act

Rand Paul amid his 10 1/2 hour filibuster in 2015

Among the general public, Paul is probably best known as Capitol Hill's chief tormentor of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Paul says the evidence indicates the virus emerged from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. He's accused Fauci and other members of the US government public health apparatus of evading questions about their funding of the Chinese lab's "gain of function" research, which takes natural viruses and morphs them into something more dangerous. Paul has pointedly said that Fauci committed perjury in congressional hearings and that he belongs in jail "without question."   

Musk is neither the only nor the first noteworthy figure to back Paul for party leader. Just hours after McConnell announced his upcoming step-down from leadership, independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr voiced his support: 

In a testament to the extent to which the establishment recoils at the libertarian-minded Paul, mainstream media outlets -- which have been quick to report on other developments in the majority leader race -- pretended not to notice that Paul had signaled his interest in the job. More than 24 hours after Paul's test-the-waters tweet-fest began, not a single major outlet had brought it to the attention of their audience. 

That may be his strongest endorsement yet. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 20:25

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The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While “Waiting” For Deporation, Asylum

The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum

Over the past several…

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The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum

Over the past several months we've pointed out that there has  been zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018...

... and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born (read immigrants, mostly illegal ones) workers.

And while the left might find this data almost as verboten as FBI crime statistics - as it directly supports the so-called "great replacement theory" we're not supposed to discuss - it also coincides with record numbers of illegal crossings into the United States under Biden.

In short, the Biden administration opened the floodgates, 10 million illegal immigrants poured into the country, and most of the post-pandemic "jobs recovery" went to foreign-born workers, of which illegal immigrants represent the largest chunk.

Asylum seekers from Venezuela await work permits on June 28, 2023 (via the Chicago Tribune)

'But Tyler, illegal immigrants can't possibly work in the United States whilst awaiting their asylum hearings,' one might hear from the peanut gallery. On the contrary: ever since Biden reversed a key aspect of Trump's labor policies, all illegal immigrants - even those awaiting deportation proceedings - have been given carte blanche to work while awaiting said proceedings for up to five years...

... something which even Elon Musk was shocked to learn.

Which leads us to another question: recall that the primary concern for the Biden admin for much of 2022 and 2023 was soaring prices, i.e., relentless inflation in general, and rising wages in particular, which in turn prompted even Goldman to admit two years ago that the diabolical wage-price spiral had been unleashed in the US (diabolical, because nothing absent a major economic shock, read recession or depression, can short-circuit it once it is in place).

Well, there is one other thing that can break the wage-price spiral loop: a flood of ultra-cheap illegal immigrant workers. But don't take our word for it: here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself during his February 60 Minutes interview:

PELLEY: Why was immigration important?

POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.

PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?

POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that's none of our business. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it.

I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.

PELLEY: The country needed the workers.

POWELL: It did. And so, that's what's been happening.

Translation: Immigrants work hard, and Americans are lazy. But much more importantly, since illegal immigrants will work for any pay, and since Biden's Department of Homeland Security, via its Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency, has made it so illegal immigrants can work in the US perfectly legally for up to 5 years (if not more), one can argue that the flood of illegals through the southern border has been the primary reason why inflation - or rather mostly wage inflation, that all too critical component of the wage-price spiral  - has moderated in in the past year, when the US labor market suddenly found itself flooded with millions of perfectly eligible workers, who just also happen to be illegal immigrants and thus have zero wage bargaining options.

None of this is to suggest that the relentless flood of immigrants into the US is not also driven by voting and census concerns - something Elon Musk has been pounding the table on in recent weeks, and has gone so far to call it "the biggest corruption of American democracy in the 21st century", but in retrospect, one can also argue that the only modest success the Biden admin has had in the past year - namely bringing inflation down from a torrid 9% annual rate to "only" 3% - has also been due to the millions of illegals he's imported into the country.

We would be remiss if we didn't also note that this so often carries catastrophic short-term consequences for the social fabric of the country (the Laken Riley fiasco being only the latest example), not to mention the far more dire long-term consequences for the future of the US - chief among them the trillions of dollars in debt the US will need to incur to pay for all those new illegal immigrants Democrat voters and low-paid workers. This is on top of the labor revolution that will kick in once AI leads to mass layoffs among high-paying, white-collar jobs, after which all those newly laid off native-born workers hoping to trade down to lower paying (if available) jobs will discover that hardened criminals from Honduras or Guatemala have already taken them, all thanks to Joe Biden.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 19:15

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