Large pipe - with the title saying it isn't. Meaning it is not what it looks like - blog illustration

It is Not a Pipe

A long view this time : Has the price of capital changed for good? How bad is the UK position? Oh, and the unusual universality of colonialism.

A Far Off Galaxy

Let’s start with colonialism. I have been reading about the benighted past of Bulgaria (R.J. Crampton, 2nd Ed, CUP). A Bulgarian I know said that the country ‘has a knack for picking the wrong side’ - a little harsh, I thought. However, it has always existed as a colony, aside from a brief imperial phase around the last millennium but one, and before that when it equated to Thrace, almost as far back again.

Given the option, Bulgaria recently opted to join the Western European empires’ current formulation as the EU and NATO - the latter being the armed wing of Western thought. Bulgaria had suffered horribly under the Soviets, with a steady and ruthless coercion of an existing multiparty democracy, at a speed just enough to keep outsiders ignorant, or if not, passive.

That history gives me a whole new viewpoint, on the string of broadly similar states. The Balkans and The Middle East all appear in a new light, and indeed I start to comprehend the bitter sideshows (as they seem now) in both World Wars, over that same terrain.

The collapsing empires (Russian, Ottoman, Roman,) seem more influential than the current rulers in so many former colonial states. They are really not, as we think now, a series of nations fighting for ‘independence’. In most cases that independence is fragile to the point of being mythical, while the internal fissures are enduring. The cracks of nations within empires, not of states within a world.

Now You See It

One passage in Crampton’s work stood out “by mid-summer social and industrial unrest were widespread with strikes by civil servants. On transport networks, and despite the provisions of the law, in the ports and medical services. The government was forced to grant a 26% wage increase to all state employees, an action which weakened its attempts to control the budget deficit and inflation and which did little to impress the international financial organisations.”

Written about conditions just before another wrenching Balkan realignment last century, this rather made me stop and reflect.

A parallel with the UK?

Just how close are we in the UK to that edge? Lost in a warm feeling for individual strikers and their causes, and a very British willingness just to plough on, there still seems to be a real danger.

I am well aware of our great national strengths, in the arts, our language, higher education, science, heritage, even logistics and retailing - they are enduring causes for optimism. But long-term investors need to weigh up the recent damage, especially the loss of political capital by the “responsible” right, the high levels of debt and taxation, which coupled with low productivity, could also spell trouble, the certainty of ongoing nationalism and the unhealed rift of Brexit.

There is danger too in the probability of a Labour government, which however centrist the leader is, will have left wing factions to assuage. It is equally dangerous to continue our recent experience of minimal ministerial experience. I hope the change won’t be as bad as I fear, but it will probably be worse than I hope.

This remains a reason for the FTSE to be anchored to late 20th Century levels, despite almost every stock I research looking cheap. The fear of being still cheaper tomorrow rules.

Do Markets Care?

 

On the other hand, re-pricing capitalism after the decade of populist nonsense by central bankers does feel pretty good. If you have no cost of money and no reward for savers, financial gambling prevails.

All of this raises a key issue: is the apparent resurgence of speculation (the greater fool theory of investing) permanent? In which case investors should probably just watch momentum. Or is this most recent re-run of the last decade’s speculative phase, really transient?

For a better view, see this page on Statista

As long as inflation exceeds the cost of money, assets will likely rise; the widespread return of real interest rates (a point we are almost at) should slow that down.

After that point what matters is cash flow, and whereas gambling will favour growth stocks, real returns come about when interest rates are high, but inflation is also falling. The gap matters and we are not there yet.

This is probably the crux of the next two years, and we doubt that having had a serene and slow drift towards recession, there is any reason either to expect a suddenly faster descent now, or really to expect the corollary, a sudden fall in interest rates, to offset a deep recession.

If rates stay high, but have indeed peaked and inflation declines, value investors should be in a better place. If they get it wrong, they are at least paid to wait.

As we have seen in the last twelve months, growth investors fuelled by borrowed money really do need a rising market, they get hit twice if it falls: both through a loss of capital and then the need to fund loss-making assets at real rates.

The Monogram View

 

Overall, our position has been that fundamentals should win, but we suspect momentum will win. Spotting the next momentum shift early, therefore remains a powerful driver of returns.

One narrative of 2023 (so far) is that the SVB crisis and stronger growth combined led to far more liquidity than markets expected. This fed into the gambling stocks, giving them momentum.

So, although the first half was not what we expected, the second half might still be. But it is just one narrative, and it may still be the wrong one.

 

 

 

 

Note : Further reading, for those interested in Bulgaria :

See also, The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism, Obolensky, Dmitri.

 


illustration of article by Charles Gillams - face of Jeremy hunt, UK chancellor of the exchequer, and Jay Powell, Chair, US Federal Reserve. In the middle of the three picture panel is a half picture of some legs, skipping

Skipping along

Skipping is the week’s theme, following the inadvertent use of the term by the Fed Chairman, along with the rather weird behaviour of Jeremy Hunt.

Although any skipping seems unlikely soon, on this side of the Atlantic.

The dear old ‘recession’ still lingers, unseen but feared, like an ex Prime Minister. We are convinced it will arrive, but as a ‘technical’ recession only. It should be hard for anyone to be surprised. Labour markets are much stickier and far more fragmented. Supply is short, so any systemic shock feels unlikely. While as old hands keep noting, single figure mortgage rates, well below inflation rates, are hardly restrictive.

Chair Powell (almost) mentions ‘skipping’.

Jerome Powell was bowling along contentedly, when he suddenly described the Reserve Board’s June inactivity as ‘skipping’. Although it actually was just a ‘skip’, before he realised the error and with a guilty look speedily reverted to the far more passive ‘pausing’.  But we knew how he was thinking. He was going to keep his foot on the neck of borrowers for a bit longer – interestingly, he refers to real rates of interest, as somehow unjust and injurious. Odd that when asked anything about fiscal policy he instantly plays the neutral, technical banker, no good and evil there.

Moves in the real economy.

So, what has really happened?

Not a lot, energy prices have climbed all the way up, and now slid all the way down. Aggressive fiscal stimulus continues, any chance Biden has to bribe the electorate with their own money, he still takes. Employment remains strong, although there is some tightening in hours worked, but it is still pretty hard to see how the Fed gets down to 2% inflation for a year or two.

And yet, markets by a mix of that unseen recession and faith in so called base effects, do think inflation by the autumn, will justify a real pause. No skipping.

UK Chancellor’s odd statements

Here in the UK Jeremy Hunt is in quite a different place. Inflation still looks high and embedded, but he has carefully outlined how he would keep going with substantial hand outs to offset inflation (aka fiscal stimulus).

However, inflation control was all for the Bank to sort out.

This is nonsense, of course. The UK Government is yet again stoking inflation while taking no responsibility for stopping it. He then gave a tortuous explanation as to why his policies have now produced exactly the same interest rates as the Truss typhoon, created by his reckless predecessor, but somehow, not at all the same.

Rate rises – a global feature.

Funny that, as we noted at the time, there was little odd about the October rate spike, and much that the Bank could have done (but refused to) by a prompt rate rise (matching the US) to stabilise the currency and inflation.

Rate rises are a global feature, with not a lot one small country could do about it.

UK's size of the global economy depicted by size of circles

2021 chart produced by the UK Institute of Chartered Accountants

 

So quite where the virtue of the Truss toppling quarter point rise is now, is rather unclear.

As sterling shows, the prize for that autumnal sloth will be higher rates (and inflation) than elsewhere for longer. The thing about fire fighting is the sooner you start the less you have to do.

So how did Monogram’s methodology work?

Our in-house model switched into Japan in December 2022 and Europe in March 2023. As we only ever deal in half a dozen big global index Exchange Traded Funds, this is not a tickle, but 25% of the total equity position in (or out) at once.

Brutal and scary, but effective.

We look at the signal, kick the tyres, thump the bonnet, turn it off and on again, look for reasons to ignore it, and then six months later look back in wonder and say, “oh yes, that was right”. These signals are delicate enough to very seldom feel right at the time, but after almost a decade of running the model, we have learnt to obey.

So, our Momentum performance discussion, yet again, is about how much we made, not about in which direction the money went. While the GBP version, seeing similar signals, has also never come out of the S&P 500, which for a good while also felt wrong, but it seems was right, taking a long view. The USD model was more skittish but is back in both (S&P and NASDAQ) US indices now.

So, we do know where momentum has been, and it is quite strong.

Markets in the political timeline

The rational thinkers say the market is (still) too expensive, but the trend followers don’t agree, who is right?

We tend to feel just as Central Bankers were very slow to spot inflation, they are possibly being too slow to see it has now been contained, and the US skip may be a pause and then a snooze. Which would be very convenient for the Fed during the US Primaries, allowing for cuts into the US election?

Related to that, we watch with amusement a dialogue about the attractiveness of stock exchanges, in particular in London, couched entirely in terms of what potential listing companies say they want. Not a mention of what investors want, as if they just don’t matter. Quite absurd, as what all listings need is a deep market, good liquidity, stable tax regimes, and an attractive base currency.

Is London aiming to provide these?  We seem to favour founders – so, tweaks to voting rights, smaller free floats, fewer shareholder rights. But then oops! No buyers.

This is worse than nonsense, it damages what little is left of London’s reputation. In this market you start with the buyers. The price performance of many a recent IPO spells out the problem, the sellers are finding it too easy to deceive people – a call is needed for greater transparency, longer lock-ins, and less pandering to insiders and their advisers (not more).

 


Photograph of a bleak landscape - near, Dungeness power station, UK

Pain delayed, pleasure denied

We look at the startling emergence of another US based tech bubble, the failure of value investing and offer some reflections on the UK market.

The Bones of World Financial Markets.

This has been a baffling half year in which, with few exceptions, we have ended up going sideways for most of it. The exceptions were in descending order, within equities, the NASDAQ (by a mile), Japan, Germany, the S&P and France. Although all, especially Japan, offset by a weakening local currency for UK investors. A quite unusual, largely unrelated, mix of old and new.

Overall, cyclicals in general, and energy in particular, as well as bonds, and China have been painful and financials at best so-so. It feels like a year to not hold what worked last year and vice versa.  Nor is it as simple as growth versus value; neither have worked consistently, except in the case of a small (but rotating) group of tech stocks.

Our view thus far, has been that until global growth starts to move, we stay out of the way. This has been wrong, because the overvalued US mega stocks, were almost the only game in town. Yet jumping in now, of course, also feels very dangerous.

However, a few of our growth markers have, even if flat on the year, started to shift, not the highly speculative micro stuff, which is still falling away, but the solid middle ground. The hot India tech sector, far more connected to Silicon Valley than we realise, has suddenly jumped.

Macro Skeleton

What about the underlying macro story? Well, the pain of the invisible recession, and the pleasure of resulting rate cuts, have been delayed and denied respectively.

Graph from OECD data showing the price increases in G7 countries between 2018 and 2023From the UK office of National Statistics – see this chart more clearly on this page.

Well, there it is, poorly controlled inflation persists, a longer rate squeeze may still be needed. The vanishing China post-lockdown boom means that there was no sudden stimulus to offset that. Our published data (from Andrew Hunt) was saying Chinese ports were remarkably empty three months ago, from soft export demand, a good lead indicator.

All of that was hidden by strong services demand, and in closed economies (as the UK is oddly becoming) there is no relief valve, and hence it suffers embedded high inflation. But clearly consumption is dropping in the US, recent retailer numbers are all over the place, confirming those China export stats.

While on commodities, the failure of sanctions to impact energy is ever more clear, and I doubt OPEC’s ability to stem the energy glut. As a final blow to value stocks, “higher for longer”, on interest rates, which we have been predicting for two years, hurts indebted companies, who increasingly have to refinance at high rates. It also makes their dividend yields less attractive.

When rate cuts do come, growth having survived the storm, may well soar; as we have noted before, the prevailing fashion in investing heavily favours so called “tech moats” and dislikes debt. That markets keep seeking out new moats, real or imagined, is all part of that.

The speed at which digital currency and virtual reality have become old jokes, but generative AI will save us all, is remarkable.

Bond Dilemmas

In bonds we have seen no point in our lending to governments at rates that are below inflation; in most of the world as inflation falls, bonds still remain unattractive, as yields then start to drop too. So, the bond trade has been messy to say the least.

With greater certainty about a consumption recession, the fear of defaults also rises, and the longer rates are high, the more that refinance risk looms. Jumping a spike is possible, vaulting a table, without spilling your drinks, rather less so.

There is also still a ton of money parked up in fixed interest, just waiting for the equity ‘all clear’.

Lost London?

The UK market (yet again) simply flattered to deceive; I struggle to see much hope for it. While we can hope the likely change of government will be an enhancement, it really will just entrench welfare dependency and producer capture of state services, albeit in a rather more disciplined way.

The risk of Brexit always was that we would use our new freedom to rebuild old prisons. Can a new flag on an old workhouse change much? As for where our stunningly high inflation comes from, again, it must be our own creation, the Ukraine energy peak is now a dip, so it is not imported.

While no one wants to say it, tax rises, especially of such magnitude of corporation tax, in particular, are inflationary, but so is the cheap theft of frozen income tax thresholds. Trade unions employ good economists too, they negotiate for higher take home pay. Rate rises also cause extra inflation, especially with our persistent high national and consumer debt levels.

Sterling strength (it is now moving up against the Euro too) is a sign of markets seeing the UK as the best bet for avoiding rate cuts (and for getting more rate rises). That is not a good sign domestically.

 


A winter picture - there is snow on the ground and some trees with orange leaves, in a wood, in Luxembourg

Wood for the trees

We have all been obsessed with rates and inflation, but we seem to be in danger of missing what looks like a widespread bull market running broadly from last October. This is widely applicable outside the main US markets, including in gold. There is a similar and at times masking trend of dollar weakness.

What are the implications of this?

We also look at the unending tragedy of the various remnants of the Tory party.

Still Rising?

With markets still fixated on the next crash, we can sometimes overlook the long momentum swings. Although the US banking crisis matters, it is of little relevance to the far more concentrated and tightly controlled Basel III banks in Europe. Many would say to excess, but they are clearly tighter rules. The few assets not marked to market are a footnote in Europe; in the Wild West of US regionals, they can be the whole story.

On a one-year basis, the France CAC 40 is up 14%, the German DAX by 12%, with both the UK large cap and Japan’s Nikkei also positive, so equity markets have been strong, almost regardless of rate rises. The US is the main home of negative twelve month returns, but the gap between the S&P and the NASDAQ declines over that period, is now quite small, after the spring bounce back in the latter.

What does that mean?

For all the media love of the disaffected trashing their own communes, doing the right thing on pensions (they were very out of step) apparently helps France.

While the splitting of power in the US Congress and the meanderings of a senile President, has perhaps hurt the US, with everything from banking regulation to the debt ceiling made into a political game.

Brazil is down too, but India and Russia are up.

Well perhaps I go too far, but maybe there is a pattern? Markets like stability.

Relative values

While comparisons are complex where accounting systems diverge, the UK still looks like the lowest rated with the highest yield, and conversely the NASDAQ still has (by some way) the highest rating and lowest yield. US earnings are it seems still much more valuable.

The savagely anti-business stance of the UK, including a brutal rise in corporation tax maybe part of it, it will create a fall in earnings (and likely dividends) next year.

While the less visible, but still onerous onslaught in the US, including  a minimum tax take, won’t be good.

So, does inflation matter?

The UK perhaps is also seen as the one major European market that looks to have dithered too long on controlling inflation (which could explain sterling strength). However, I see no real appetite for more austerity in the UK, so I find that assumption slightly puzzling. Having the FX market convinced UK rates are going a lot higher (because of policy failures) is hardly comfortable, but feels a little like re-living last year now.

Oddly too, controlling inflation the US way, has hurt equity markets more, it seems, than letting it burn out in the European style. Heresy to many of us, but that’s what the numbers imply.

All the theory, all the historic data says we now must get a sharp recession, but then grandpa, pray where is your beloved recession? Still looking, since mid February. It seems we must appease the inverted yield curve and believe base rates matter, but a bit more evidence would certainly help.

And rate cuts will be a powerful tonic, when they come. The bears are now reliant on widespread recessions, and soon.

Perhaps the best of this little bull market has gone, but there is a lot of liquidity still about and being out of the market with high inflation, is not great.

A multitude of sins – local elections coming up

And what of the UK Tory “Party”, if such a mess can be called that. The assumption for a while has been that the imminent local elections will be bad for them. However, they are a curious mix of voting locations this time, not London, not all of the Home Counties, none of the Celtic fringe, but a good chunk (but again not all) of the Red Wall seats. See map below.

This is a map showing all the political parties in a regional map of the UK just prior to local elections in 2023

Map from Wikipedia page on 2023 local elections

But really it is heavily biased to the Tory heartland, vast swathes of Labour free wards, where they are not even bothering with candidates, so it will not tell us that much. The Lib Dems will do well, but significant conquests in many areas will now require quite substantial swings.

The assumption is also that Dominic Raab was cut down by Sunak, who has yet to learn that throwing competent colleagues under the bus may feel good, but it thins the ranks of effective ministers, and builds up the malcontents. He has handled these badly, and forgets the real target is not his ministers, but his own position.

Tory strategy

Seemingly the Tory party has run just one electoral strategy for years, based on old victories; just trash the opponent. In a two-party state, voters must then decide who they dislike least. And both Labour (and the SNP) have reliably offered something so vile, that a simple victory follows.

But no longer, Labour (despite their recent rather crude posters) still seem innocuous.

The Lib Dems are sticking to their amateur politics, which can also look strangely alluring, if the other two parties look mysterious or inept. The Tories (like the SNP) are now in danger of being judged by results, not by fear or hatred of the alternative.

The score card on that basis looks pretty bad, and Sunak’s pledges are so far, going the wrong way.

 


The Sleep of Reason

Big picture risk assessments today, and worries about the prevailing style of regulation - we look at where the next bank blow up maybe. We’re assuming this will again be caused by regulators and their herding behaviour. On the upside, an improving medium-term market outlook. Also, dollar danger.

But before I begin


First of all, many thanks to those who replied to our sentiment survey, you are a cautious crowd! Over half (53%) sitting on the fence, alongside us. The largest directional group is bullish on equities (18%), but it is a pretty even bull/bear split with bonds, and quite a few equity bears too.

Regulatory Myopia and Declining Banks

Bank boards (and auditors) are still clearly confusing regulatory approval with sound banking, in the odd belief that excuse will wash, when they implode. In particular we worry about the vast amount of debt that is sitting on bank balance sheets, at below current market levels, and not in this case issued by governments.

We have notable anxiety about two areas, fixed rate mortgages and investment grade debt where, especially for the former, the numbers are vast. Perhaps the tightening steps to date appear so ineffective, just because so much of this old low-cost issuance, is only very slowly rolling off .

Big picture – the effect of long dated low-cost loans, with rising interest rates

This leaves cheap money in the system, funded by banks, that have to pay way more to keep funding these long-term deals. They’re doing this typically with short-term sources, like deposits. In sub-prime, asset finance, trade finance, consumer finance, none of it matters much, as they are pretty short duration.  Which is where most people worry, because of default rates, we don’t.

But in mortgages especially the regulator typically issues the future economic scenarios to banks, who then price (originate) and provide for losses against that projection.

If that projection is absurdly few rate rises, for a decade (as it was till fairly recently), it seems banks just follow obediently along. As a result, they have issued vast amounts of long dated, low cost loans based on false or unrealistic assumptions.

Those regulator driven economic assumptions/scenarios are key, and yet are lost in the detail. Each bank has to publish them if you dig deep enough.  (Some are on p155-157 of the HSBC accounts, for example, if you have the stamina.)

Re-mortgages – what they contribute to our big picture

The other part is refresh rates, in a falling interest rate world, borrowers re-mortgage every few years, but in a rising one early redemptions virtually stop. So, the whole system gums up, without fresh liquidity. Regulators have not seen, and have no data, on such a ‘higher rates for longer’ world. So, it is assumed that world cannot exist. While the key thing (still) on these scenarios is that interest rates are still assumed to be like rockets, straight up straight down.

Now if you assume that, there is some short term pain, but normal service resumes soon enough with no long-term issue. But is it realistic? It is a vast slow moving market as in this publication of the FCA’s mortgage lending statistics .

Inevitably the scenario dispersion used is small, indicating a regulatory finger remains on the scales. So, most banks take the Central Bank forecast as the middle way, with say 10% either side. All as at the historic balance sheet date. Last year they were nonsense even before publication, two months on.

That is aside from Hong Kong, where real economic models, with real outcome ranges are visible. For most markets you see a skein of twisted rope drifting laconically into the future, but on HK they produce an exploding ammunition graph, smoke trails looping everywhere.

To a lesser extent BP debt (a classic investment grade, big, global borrower) is a similar problem. It has half fixed, half floating issuance, but the fixed is at 3% with a fourteen-year average term and the floating at twice that, at 6%. Now someone holds that fixed debt, and if regulated it will have to now be held below par. Are BP going to prepay it? Despite the roar of cash coming in, why would they? It is stuck, unusable for 14 years, unless inflation (and rates) collapse as fast as predicted.

What else is driving markets?

The big upside drivers to us are, the end of COVID, the end of the energy spike and falling rates. The first two will help through 2023 and 2024. Rising rates are still hurting, but again 2024 and beyond  looks good.

While the biggest current downside driver is the recession, which will impact 2023, but again rebound in 2024. So, the issue is: will the rather timorous monetary tightening and anaemic reductions in the absurd fiscal overdrive, be enough to defuse all that good news coming in the next year?

Markets apparently think not.

We are particularly struck by the NASDAQ up 18% year to date, yet our tech bell weather share, Herald Investment Trust (HIT) is still (marginally) down YTD. So is this a bitcoin-type story (all about liquidity) or is it based on tech fundamentals? If the latter, then why is it seemingly glued to the US, and not translatable? Even failing to reach non-US holders of US companies.

For now, until the price of global tech shifts, I treat the US as a special case; growth is not back yet.

While the currency charts are unclear, it does also feel like the beginning of the end of the great dollar story, with sterling persistently ticking higher of late.

Graph showing the dollar share of global reservesFrom: this page published by the NY federal reserve.

That’s a real danger for portfolios that thrived on dollar power last year.

We close wishing you a happy Easter break. We will be back with St George.