Positivas:

Las predicciones de Asoka Wöhrmann

Wöhrmann, que acaba de ser nombrado responsable global de inversiones y presidente del comité que decide la perspectiva global de inversión de DeAWM, revela cuáles son sus vaticinios. "La década de la renta variable tan solo acaba de empezar", asegura.

Batería de predicciones de Asoka Wöhrmann sobre la economía y los mercados. El reconocido director de inversiones de Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) ha aprovechado la conferencia anual celebrada por la entidad en Londres para dar su particular punto de vista sobre el momento actual y hacer sus proyecciones de cara al futuro. Y lo ha hecho justo cuando se conocía que Wöhrmann presidirá el comité que decide la perspectiva global de inversión de la gestora y que, además, asume en exclusiva la responsabilidad de las actividades de inversión y de los equipos de DeAWM dentro de las estrategias de renta variable, renta fija y multiactivos, al convertirse en el director de Inversiones de la entidad, cargo que antes compartía con Randy Brown, que pasa a ser responsable de la gestora alemana para Reino Unido.

En primer lugar, Wöhrmann considera que, en un entorno de tipos de interés en torno al 0%, asumir riesgo es inevitable. Y, en este sentido, la renta variable es, según el experto, el activo en el que estar. “La década de la renta variable solo acaba de empezar. Se dice que la bolsa está cara y no es verdad. El precio valor en libros del MSCI World Index está en torno a las dos veces, es decir, sobre su media histórica. Aunque el mercado estuviera en máximos, en lo que hay que fijarse es en la valoración.Durante los 2-3 últimos años, las bolsas han subido por la expansión de múltiplos. Ahora, este crecimiento vendrá motivado por los resultados empresariales, que actualmente pasan por un buen momento. Los beneficios y los dividendos serán lo que generará la rentabilidad en el mercado. En el actual entorno, preferimos las compañías cíclicas a las defensivas, sobre todo los bancos”.

Según el experto, tradicionalmente, escenarios de baja volatilidad han venido asociados a una positiva evolución de las acciones. “En el último año, la probabilidad de pérdida del S&P 500 ha sido del 27%; a tres años, del 15%, a cinco del 12% y a diez años del 4%”. Wöhrmann sitúa el retorno que puede ofrecer la renta variable entre el 8% y el 10%. “Es el escenario de rentabilidad más normal”, asegura. Entre sus principales apuestas está Europa, al entender que su mercado se beneficiará de la política que está siguiendo el BCE, y los emergentes, donde considera que las valoraciones son atractivas. Destaca su apuesta por India, China o Corea del Sur y su cautela sobre Turquía, Brasil e Indonesia. “No vemos a los emergentes como un todo. Es un grupo muy heterogéneo y se debe diferenciar. Hay una gran dispersión en términos de rentabilidad y para encontrar oportunidades se necesita contar con profesionales sobre el terreno”.

En renta fija, Wöhrmann considera que asistiremos a un escenario de normalización de las tires, pero en el que no habrá un fuerte sell-off. “La mejoría de los fundamentales sugiere un entorno de subida gradual de tipos, pero entre 2003 y 2005 hemos visto 17 veces subidas de un cuarto de punto en un cuarto de punto y los mercados se comportaron bien”, recuerda. En lo que respecta al mercado de renta fija corporativa, por ejemplo, el director de inversiones de DeAWM recuerda que es una clase de activo que lo ha hecho muy bien desde 2006, lo que ha hecho bajar las tires de manera drástica. “Atravesamos un entorno de crecimiento económico, en el que los balances de las compañías están saneados y la ratio de default es muy baja. El carry trade prevalece y todavía se pueden encontrar buenas oportunidades, aunque es cierto que el entorno se ha vuelto mucho más desafiante para los tenedores de deuda”, indica.

Al igual que reconoce que la fuerte caída de las tires hace que la situación del mercado sea mucho más difícil, Wöhrmann se muestra convencido de que el actual entorno de baja volatilidad no va a durar para siempre. “Para anticipar posibles repuntes de la volatilidad es conveniente prestar especial atención a los riesgos geopolíticos y a la política de forward guidance de los bancos centrales”. A este respecto, el experto pone de manifiesto el desacople entre las políticas de las autoridades monetarias, lo cual es un factor a tener en cuenta por el efecto que puede tener en los mercados. Y es que, mientras en EE.UU. la Fed está retirando el tapering, en Europa se empieza a hablar de la puesta en marcha de un nuevo programa de flexibilización cuantitativa, lo que –en su opinión– debería favorecer al dólar, que tendría que verse impulsado además por la recuperación económica del país.

En EE.UU. el temor es que se produzca una inflación mayor a la prevista por la Fed. En Europa, por el contrario, el temor es la deflación, lo cual es una posibilidad, pero no es el escenario central de DeAWM.“Estamos, ciertamente, en un escenario anormal en muchos sentidos. También a nivel macroeconómico. Tradicionalmente, el crecimiento económico venía acompañado de un mayor apalancamiento por parte de los hogares. Sin embargo, esta vez es diferente, ya que las familias llevan cinco años desapalancándose. Por otro lado, asistiremos a una recuperación más lenta de la economía, pero que durará más tiempo. Es la recuperación de la tortuga. El crecimiento vuelve, pero será a un ritmo más lento que durará más en el tiempo. Es un déjà vu a lo que hemos vivido en 1992, cuando comenzó la recuperación más larga de la economía americana tras la II Guerra Mundial”.

Negativas:

Le toca el año que viene… A ver si no nos pilla en mercados que han subido tanto…

The Stock Market's Seven-Year Itch

Excerpted from 'Tangible Ideas' via Sean Corrigan of Diapason Commodities,

So where does this leave us, in financial markets, at the mid-point of the year, other than with asset prices through the roof?

As can be gathered from the faux lamentations issuing forth from those central banking Uriah Heeps who sit wringing their hands at the dangers inherent in a ‘search for yield’ which they themselves have driven, sovereign bonds are currently at their lowest yields, longest durations, and hence most adverse risk:return settings of the past half-century.

In turn, this has led to a similar compression of credit spreads to the point that junk yields are trading sub-5% nominal, sub-3% deflated for the first time in history, levels at which they spread to US treasuries has also gone blow the 250bps area which marked the eve of the last three major credit events in 1994, 1997, and 2007. Needless to say, they are also historically cheap to stock earnings yields, actually trading below them.

Stock multiples are also among the most favourable vis-à-vis corporate yields in three decades, while dividend yields – though themselves in only the 5th percentile of the last six decades’ range – are atypically well in excess of both the Fed funds rate and the 3-month T-bill rate - again for the first time in over half a century. This, as we shall shortly see, is perhaps the single most compelling reason why stock markets seem to have an inexhaustible supply of bidders.

What is good for junk is also becoming true for emerging market bonds, even if the broader indices, such as the EMBI is still some 60bps above the post-2007 lows of 220bps. Similarly, though Bono and BTP spreads have seen some profit-taking since hitting four-year lows early in June, crashed to their lows, they still trade at or through UST equivalents at the lowest nominal yields in history. For all the rumblings about debt traps, after-CPI yields in Italy, at around 2.5%, are smack on the midmean of the whole EMU era and thus substantially reduced from the 6.5% average which was laid down in the last decade of the lira’s life.

When it comes to equities themselves, it might appear that, just looking at P/E ratings – added to a little eternal optimism regarding the prospect fro the growth in the denominator, whether as a result of buybacks or earnings growth – the market has not yet gone beyond the bounds of sanity.

What we can say, however, is that the fraction of profits rung from each dollar of sales has become greatly elevated – running at just under 10% for manufacturing companies, for example, which is twice the 5% typical of the last four decades of the 20th century. This has allowed earnings to grow enough to keep the buy-side happy, even though revenue growth has become very lacklustre of late, to the point that it is barely positive in deflated terms, often aharbinger of a more widespread economic malaise.

Fundamentally, if profits are growing as a share of sales, we must be deducting less from those receipts. As a share of EBIT, both the tax take and the interest pay-out have fallen substantially over the cycle. Whereas, in the mid-1990s, interest was eating up half of pre-tax operating income and taxes were taking a third of the remainder, currently the former reduction has fallen to around 30% and the latter to a highly depressed 20%. Note, however, that in 2013, the ROIC was a creditable 5.4% nominal, 3.3% real, while the realized cost of capital (using dividends and tax-adjusted interest paid) was 3.3% nominal, 1.2% real. This, you will note, nevertheless left the residual ‘economic’ profit rate at 2.1% nominal or precisely zero after taking account of the intervening general rise in prices.

The point here is that this is a finite, if long-lived, process: the tax rate cannot continue to fall without limit while interest costs are already at historic lows (so much so, in fact that corporates, as we have noted are hardly shy about increasing their susceptibility to any future adverse changes in them). Whenever the day arrives, there will necessarily come a point when earning cannot grow faster than revenues and if, when that occurs, revenue growth itself remains enfeebled, earnings, too, must begin to disappoint.

Something of the sort may perhaps be found a parsing of the latest Duke/CFO Magazine survey of US business executives. This 405-strong sample found that the outlook for both revenues and earnings had darkened appreciably in the pact six months. Last autumn, sales were seen to be about to quicken to a 6.8% rate of increase taking earnings up to a 14.3% rate of climb. Now, revenue growth is forecast to reach only 5.7% yoy, with the earnings outlook slashed to 4.1%. That latter is the worst such outcome of their prognostications since the third quarter of 2009 and stands in stark contrast to sellside expectations, as reported by S&P, for a 25% gain.

As if that were not enough, the price to book of equities is also rising alarmingly, especially price to tangible, replacement cost book, a measure which has only been higher in the run up to the Tech bubble peak. So, to sum up, little account has been taken of the fact that a couple of the main factors which have allowed margins to expand so greatly are presumably fast approaching their expiry date; the price to forward earnings being bandied about only seems reasonable on a Street guesstimate which is no less than six times that offered by corporate insiders; price to cash flow is in the topmost six percent of the distribution; the liquidation value of the average company would leave creditors well under water, while net debt as a proportion of either cash flow or net worth is approaching previous highs.

That all hardly makes for a compelling investment case, even without wondering about the herding effects currently at work in the market.

Which only leaves us with commodities – bastard children of the last few years’ bull market, still greatly despised, outside of the energy sector, at least. In truth, in the year so far their returns have been anything but lacklustre. As of writing in the last week of June, the basket has returned a healthy 7.7%, led by Ags on 12.5% and lagged by industrial metals on just 1.3%. With such a score, they have so far outpointed US bonds (3.4%), Junk (5.6%), US Small Cap (2.7%), EM equities (5.5%), World ex-US stocks (6.1%), and the US itself (7.2%). Only EM bonds – plus-8.5% - have done any better among the major asset classes.

What this long preamble is aimed at doing is alerting the reader to the possibility that while the trend line chugs on upward with the bond market at ~6% nominal, any divergence of other asset class returns too far from this line may well sow the seeds of their own dampening and subsequent phase reversal. Here we would ask you to squint at the accompanying, start date-normalized plot of returns to see if you, too, can make out what appears to be a tantalizing, seven-year waxing and waning of equity returns away from and back to the trend, alternating Blue Sky bull markets like the one we have been in for much of the past five years with more short-lived, Icarus-like descents of the order of 50% where they converge not just with bonds, but commodities, too.

If past is indeed sometimes prologue, this simple chart might be hinting that a rally similar in arithmetical range and time-span – if not in percentage gain – to the Tech bubble itself is becoming dangerously overripe and that, if so, the most propitious time to effect an exit is not when the fat lady interrupts her warbling of the anthem to shriek, 'Fire!' at the audience instead.

Abrazos,

PD1: ¿Alemania o EEUU?

Germany 4 - 0 USA In The Economic World Cup

As 12ET rolls around and USA's soccer team prepares to engage zee Germans with the goal of advancing to the FIFA World Cup's knockout stage, Bloomberg undertook an 'economic' face off to see just how the two powerhouse nations stack up. The result - a 4-0 win for Germany does not bode well for the soccer...

Stage 1: Economic Growth (Germany wins on reality vs hope)

German gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in the first quarter. That compares with a 2.9 percent contraction for the U.S. economy, which was revised down yesterday from a 1 percent drop. [clear win for Germany]

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg ahead of the revision forecast a rebound for the second quarter, with GDP growth of 3.5 percent. Germany's expansion is predicted to slow to 1.8 percent. [USA marginal win on 'hope']

Stage 2: Jobs (Germany wins)

Germany's jobless rate has fallen to 5.2 percent from 8 percent in June 2009, according to Eurostat. The labor-force participation rate has risen to 81.38 percent from 80.71 percent in the same period, OECD data show. [clear win for Germany]

The U.S. unemployment rate is 6.3 percent, down from 10 percent in October 2009. Participation has fallen to 62.8 percent from 65 percent in the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Using comparable OECD measures of participation, the spread between the German and U.S. figures is almost 17 percentage points, compared with less than 14 before the global financial crisis. [win for Germany]

Stage 3: Current Account (Germany wins)

Germany's current account surplus was 7.5 percent of GDP in the first quarter, driven by a trade surplus of 17.4 billion euros in April. That compares with a current-account deficit of more than 2 percent for the U.S. Some European Union leaders have urged Germany to reduce its trade imbalance to help spur growth in the region. Still, the Kiel-based IfW Institute predicted on June 12 that foreign trade will contribute little to Germany's expansion in 2014 and 2015. Instead, growth will be driven mostly by corporate investments and consumer spending, IfW said. [Germany win]

Stage 4: Costs of Funding (Germany wins)

U.S. Treasury 10-year yields are the highest relative to comparable German bunds in almost 15 years, as Federal Reserve and European Central Bank policies diverge. The Fed's bond-buying program is on pace to end later this year, while the ECB announced on June 5 it would "intensify" preparations to purchase asset-backed securities. [Germany clear win]

PD2:¿Sabes cuál es la diferencia entre la Europa del Norte y la del Sur? Pues que en la del Sur, tenemos todavía muchas luces que encender…, y en la del Norte, Reino Unido incluido, tienen un cúmulo de infraestructuras hechas que difícilmente van a tener capacidad más que para seguir cambiando bombillas… A los del Sur, nos falta poner luces en las autopistas, alumbrarlo todo…