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Category: Chart of the Week

COTW: The September CPI Report

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.2% in September, bringing the year-over-year increase to 2.4%. This marks a slight decline from the 2.5% annual rate recorded in August, and is the lowest annual rate since February 2021.

COTW: Inflation and Rate Cut Expectations

With both core and headline inflation above the official 2% target for over three years, financial conditions at their loosest since May 2022, and the labor market not showing signs of significant cooling, it’s debatable whether the Fed’s recent 50 basis point rate cut—historically reserved for times of crisis—was justified.

COTW: Profitable Small Caps

U.S. small-cap stocks have performed well, gaining 11% year-to-date. However, the market remains selective: only profitable small-cap stocks are doing well, while unprofitable companies continue to lag.

COTW: Base Effects

Base effects impact how an inflation print appears. For example, if the 12-months-ago print had unusually high inflation, this year’s inflation rate might seem lower, even if prices are still rising. This is because prices are being compared to already elevated levels from the previous year. In the U.S., core inflation has been above the Fed’s 2% target for over three years.

COTW: Gold Performance in September

Gold prices historically experience a phenomenon known as the “September curse,” which refers to a consistent decline in gold prices during this month. This trend has been observed since 2017, with gold prices dropping every September during this period, averaging a decline of 3.2%.

COTW: Rising Rate Cut Expectations

As widely expected, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept interest rates unchanged at the July 31 FOMC meeting. However, minutes from the meeting, which were released on Wednesday, revealed a willingness to start cutting rates as concerns about the labor market have begun to outweigh inflation concerns.

COTW: July Jobs Report

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hurricane Beryl, which formed on July 8, had no significant impact on the national employment and unemployment data for July. The unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in July, with only 114,000 new jobs added over the month, notably lower than anticipated.

COTW: The Yen Carry Trade

The carry trade strategy involves borrowing Japanese yen at a 0% interest rate and investing in higher-yielding assets abroad to earn a profit.

COTW: Market Breadth

A handful of mega-cap technology companies are largely responsible for the S&P 500’s strong year-to-date returns of 16.3%. However, market participation has been historically narrow, with only 22% of S&P 500 members outperforming the broader index, a level well below the historical average of 52%.

COTW: ISM PMIs

The ISM Manufacturing PMI registered 48.5 in June, down from 48.7 in May, indicating contraction in the manufacturing sector for the third consecutive month.

COTW: S&P 500 Returns & Incumbent Political Parties

Negative stock market returns have impacted election outcomes, but positive returns have had less of an impact.—i.e., negative returns ‘guarantee’ loss, while positive returns don’t necessarily guarantee wins.

COTW: FOMC Rate Decisions in Election Years

Between 1994 and 2023, the Fed has hiked interest rates during the months of May to November in an election year only 16% of the time. In contrast, the Fed has only cut rates 3% of the time during the same period of an election year since 1994.

COTW: Stock Splits

On June 7th, Nvidia executed a 10-for-1 stock split, where each shareholder received nine additional shares for every share they owned at the market’s close on the day of the split.

COTW: BNPL

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is a financial service that allows consumers to purchase products immediately and pay for them over time through a series of installments.

COTW: Treasury Issuance

Treasury last week announced second and third quarter borrowing estimates. 2024 issuance on track to surpass 2023 as the highest after 2020…

COTW: Gold Miners

Gold miners have lagged behind physical gold due to rising operational costs and country-specific challenges….

COTW: AI & Nuclear Power

Tech firms and Silicon Valley billionaires have increasingly focused on nuclear energy as a sustainable solution to meet the growing energy demands of energy-intensive AI.

COTW: Record Office Vacancy Rates

The dramatic rise in office vacancy rates across the U.S. in recent years can largely be attributed to the shift in workplace dynamics post-COVID-19, with a significant number of employees now working in a hybrid model from home.

COTW: Cocoa Prices

Cocoa prices have risen more than 140% this year. The recent uptick in cocoa prices is the result of disruptions affecting both supply and demand.

COTW: End of an Era

On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan announced a significant (and highly anticipated) policy move last week by ending its negative interest rate policy and making its first rate hike in 17 years.

COTW: Consumer Sentiment

The February University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey showed a mixed trend, with a preliminary reading of 79.6 unexpectedly declining to 76.9 in the closing days of the month.

COTW: AWS Revenue

Over the past 12 months, AWS revenue alone exceeded the revenue of Nvidia ($45 billion), Visa ($33 billion), Disney ($89 billion)…

COTW: Rate Cuts

As of February 5, the implied Fed funds rate for December 2024 was 4.14%.

COTW: The Trillion Dollar Market Cap Club

U.S. companies that currently have a market capitalization of $1 trillion or more include Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Nvidia.

COTW: Bitcoin Spot ETF

While bitcoin initially declined following the SEC approval, what the longer-term impact on the historically volatile cryptocurrency’s price will be remains to be seen.

COTW: Santa Claus Rally

The Santa Claus Rally refers to a phenomenon in the U.S. stock markets where there is often an uptick in stock prices in the last five trading days of December and the first two trading days in January. On average, the Santa Claus rally has historically produced an excess return of +1.5%. Returns during the Santa Claus Rally period have been positive 79% of the time.

COTW: October

October seems to be a historically important month for the S&P 500, with some key moments throughout history all occurring around mid-October

COTW: The Rule of 72

The “Rule of 72” is a simple formula used in finance to estimate how long it will take to double an investment’s value by dividing 72 by the annual interest rate or annual growth rate. Over the past four decades, declining cash yields, proxied by the 3-month Treasury yield, have extended the doubling time for cash investments

COTW: Yen-tervention

The Japanese yen has been dropping sharply over the past few days, after the Bank of Japan announced that it has kept interest rates in negative territory, at -0.1%.

COTW: One Year Later

On September 23, 2022, the British government announced its largest tax cuts since the early 1970s, primarily funded through borrowing, totaling over $196 billion in projected costs over the coming years. This announcement led to a sharp increase in gilt yields, further driven higher by existing worries about inflation, interest rates, and the long-term sustainability of UK government finances.

COTW: The September Effect

September has historically been one of the worst-performing months, particularly over the last two decades. Referred to as the “September Effect,” this phenomenon reflects a tendency for stocks, notably the S&P 500, to exhibit poor performance during September. The most notable declines occur within the initial half of the month, with an average drop of 5.7%.

COTW: Wages and Sentiment

After 24 consecutive months of negative growth, real wages turned positive for the first time in June, as wages outpaced inflation for the first time since 2021. Real average hourly earnings remained positive in July, for a second consecutive month.

COTW: The July Rally

The July Rally refers to the historically strong performance of U.S. large cap stocks in the month of July. Since 1920, July has been a top-performing month

COTW: The Magnificent Seven

First, it was FAANG: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google. Now, it’s the Magnificent Seven: Meta, Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla.

COTW: Disconnect

The S&P 500 is up nearly 17% year-to-date and now up more than 20% since the October 2022 lows. However, with full year 2023 earnings per share estimates down 3.3%, there seems to be a disconnect.

COTW: Seasonal Strength?

The first half of this year has been anything but ordinary—characterized by a banking sector in March, a widespread acceleration in AI adoption and interest in May, and the recent rally of the S&P 500 into a bull market. When looking at historical returns since 1928, the S&P 500 could be entering into a period of seasonal strength over the next couple of months.

COTW: Ongoing Banking Stresses

BTFP usage skyrocketed in March, reaching a peak in April. Since then, BTFP usage remained elevated, albeit at relatively consistent levels. On May 3, BTFP usage started to climb again, and reached record-level use in the first week of June.

COTW: Interest in AI

More recently, interest in AI has boomed, driven largely by the launch of ChatGPT in November last year.

COTW: Unstoppable Tech

Overall, the S&P 500 is up 9.9% year-to-date. However, this perceived market strength is not indicative of the average public company’s performance. Instead, a handful of stocks—Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and Alphabet—have been driving market strength.

COTW: Longer-Term Inflation Expectations

When asked during the latest FOMC meeting in early May whether the Fed would accept a prolonged period of 3% inflation, Fed Chairman Powell clearly reiterated their goal of lowering inflation to 2%, stating, “We’re not looking to reach 3% and drop our tools. We have a goal of getting to 2%.”

COTW: Entrenched Inflation

After peaking at 9.1% in June last year, the April CPI print shows that inflation has slowed to 5.0%, indicating the continued cooling of inflation off record-high levels. While this should have been a welcome sign for U.S. consumers of prices starting to ease, there has instead been an uptick in expectations of inflation remaining higher for longer.

COTW: The Consumer Squeeze

The latest CPI print seems to show good news: Inflation increased by 5.0% year-over-year, and is finally showing signs of easing after peaking at 9.1% in June 2022. However, this is still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2.0% target, which means that there’s still a way to go before prices stabilize.

COTW: Tighter Lending Standards

Long before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, U.S. banks had started to report tightening lending standards for commercial and industrial loans for firms of all sizes. The chart below shows how, throughout the first two months of the year, at least 44% of domestic banks have reported tightened lending standards. With Q1 2023 data due in May, which will include the impact of the recent financial stability, expectations are for banks to accelerate loan tightening conditions.

COTW: Sticky Inflation Measures

Last week, several important inflation measures were released. The Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Price Index moved down to 5.0% in February, from 5.3% in January. However, since its peak of 7.0% in June 2022, there has been only a very slow downward trend over the last 9 months. It remains well above its 20-year average and the Fed’s target of 2.0%.

COTW: Extreme Interest Rate Spreads

The spread between interest paid on a bank’s liabilities (e.g. deposits) and the interest received on assets (e.g. investments), known as the Net Interest Margin (NIM), is a key driver of bank profitability. Banks generally benefit from higher interest rate environments as they are able to delay raising interest on deposits, while benefitting from higher interest income from investments.

COTW: SVB Fallout and the Fed’s Rate Hike Path

Last month, the Federal Reserve slowed the pace of rate hikes, increasing interest rates by 0.25%, following a 0.50% rate hike in December and three consecutive 0.75% hikes at the three prior meetings. In early March, following a series of strong economic data releases in February, expectations were for interest rates to reach a high of 5.44% in July this year, before dropping down to 5.31% at the end of 2023.

COTW: Inflation and the S&P 500

January’s inflation print showed inflation increasing 0.5% month-over-month, to 6.4%. A monthly reading of 0.5% or higher is rare, as there have only been five occasions that inflation has increased by 0.5% or more month-over-month between the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and 2020. While ongoing elevated levels of inflation are having a material impact on consumers and the prices for goods and services, it is also having an impact on the relative strength of U.S. companies.

COTW: Growth and Value Indices

The S&P 500 Value and S&P 500 Growth indices are two style indices designed to provide investors with exposure to the market’s value and growth segments, with constituents in the indices taken from the S&P 500. Each year, these indices are rebalanced. The 2022 annual rebalancing, which occurred on December 16 2022, saw record turnover, as market trends throughout the year impacted the style classification of many companies—resulting in notable changes in sector exposure in the Growth and Value indices.

COTW: Personal Savings

During the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. consumers accumulated more than $2 trillion in excess household savings, enabling them to spend and to continue spending even as inflation reached decade-high levels. In April 2020, personal saving rates reached an all time high of 33%. However, since then, it has steadily declined, reaching 2.4% in September 2022—the lowest levels since 2005. It slowly started ticking up after September, reaching 3.4% in December, albeit still well below the historical average of 8.9%.

COTW: Existing Home Sales – Now vs GFC

Existing home sales have fallen by 2.6 million over the past 23 months, compared to a 2.4. million decline over the same period during the Global Financial Crisis.

COTW: 2022 Market Recap

2022 was one of the worst years for markets since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Record-high levels of inflation and subsequent aggressive monetary policy reactions by central banks across the globe saw both stocks and bonds tumble.

COTW: The U.S. Debt Ceiling

Created in 1917, the U.S. debt ceiling limits the amount the federal government can owe. It was initially used as a tool to make it easier for government to borrow money. Currently, the U.S. debt ceiling is set at just under $31.38 trillion.

COTW: Resilient Retail Sales

U.S. retail sales data was released last week, exceeding expectations and proving resilient in the face of high inflation and continued rate hikes by the Fed. Headline retail sales rose +1.3% in October, exceeding the expectation of +1.0%.

COTW: Financial Conditions

The Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Conditions Index tracks the current position of financial variables in the U.S. that influence economic activity and therefore the future state of the economy. The index includes variables such as short- and long-term interest rates, U.S. dollar strength, credit spreads, and equity valuations. The higher the index, the tighter financial conditions, and vice-versa.

COTW: Not All Tech Companies Are Built Equal

Like most bear market environments, 2022 has seen growth stocks materially underperform their value counterparts. Of the growth stocks, tech has been among the hardest hit, with the S&P 500 tech sector down 33% year to date — trailing the broader index by over 8.0%. One of the key contributors to the underperformance of growth, and tech, has been the sharp rise in interest rates over the year.

COTW: U.S. Dollar vs Commodities

The U.S. dollar has historically had an inverse correlation to commodities. When the dollar strengthens, commodities become more expensive in non-U.S. currencies, which tends to lead to lower demand and thus lower prices. The inverse applies to dollar weakness.

COTW: U.S. Stocks vs Bonds

The average 1-year correlation between U.S. stocks and bonds has been negative since 2000, meaning that positive returns in the one asset class has generally been accompanied by negative returns in the other and vice-versa.

COTW: Bear Market Rally

U.S. stocks, as proxied by the S&P 500, have rebounded from their June lows, rallying more than 13% in 33 days. While this rally has provided relief to the market, investor should be cautious in calling the end to the current bear market based on this rebound, as bear markets can experience multiple unsuccessful rallies before markets bottom.

COTW: IPOs Have Left Many Speechless This Year

Airbnb CEO and Co-Founder, Brian Chesky, was left speechless on Bloomberg TV last week after hearing the opening price of his company’s IPO for the first time. It was a reaction shared by many investors this year when observing the performance of IPOs.

COTW: Small Cap Stocks Playing Catch-up

While small cap stocks (as measured by the Russell 2000 Index) have lagged large cap stocks (as measured by the S&P 500 Index) year to date, the gap narrowed in November after small cap outperformed large cap by 9.3% (as of November 29). 

COTW: Here We Go Again

Reminiscent of late 2017-early 2018, risk assets are rallying into year end and bitcoin is leading the charge as it nears its December 17, 2017 high of $19,041.

COTW: Venture Capital Washout

According to data from Bloomberg, Venture Capital activity is down 22% since the start of the year. However, that activity had already slowed dramatically prior to the COVID-19 crisis intensifying as the index reached an all time high in June of 2019 and is now d own 52%

COTW: Travel to Hong Kong Has Come to a Halt

As official estimates of the number of new coronavirus cases each day slows, hopeful eyes are watching for improvement in the news coming out of Mainland China as well as those countries most impacted by restrictions on travel and trade related to the virus…

COTW: How Your Starting Point Impacts Forward Returns

Fidelity’s recent audit of its 30 million retirement accounts revealed that nearly 40% of its clients were over-allocated to equities relative to what would be recommended by most advisors for their current phase of life.

COTW: QE or not QE?

After announcing the U.S. Federal Reserve would again start buying up large quantities of Treasury securities, Fed chair Jerome Powell clarified what was really happening during the post-announcement Q&A session: “This is not QE. In no sense is this QE.”

COTW: Headed for a Global Earnings Recession?

Are we headed for a global earnings recession? Overlaying the year-over-year percentage change in Singapore Electronics Exports with earnings per share growth for the MSCI World Index, a widely used proxy for world stocks, suggests we may very well be. Exports of electronic goods from Singapore dropped 25.9% in August, largely as a result of Trade War related issues.

COTW: Convergence of Active and Passive U.S. Equity Funds

Morningstar recently published their April Fund Flows report. Per the report: “at the end of April passive U.S. equity fund assets essentially reached parity with active U.S. equity funds at $4.3 trillion each”. Contrast that with the balance back in 1998 when there were 6.5 times as many assets in actively managed U.S. stock funds as in index funds.

COTW: Equity Returns from Cycle Lows in Unemployment

The U.S. unemployment rate (U3) increased to 4% in January after hitting an almost 50-year low of 3.7% in September 2018 and again in November 2018.  The unemployment rate has now increased for two straight months.

COTW: Gold! What is it Good For?

Gold is one of the most polarizing investments we know of, which is one of the reasons we started giving it a serious look at the end of 2017.

COTW: The Best Year for Cash in at Least Two Decades

After nearly nine years of short-term interest rates held near zero, the normalization of monetary policy that began in late 2015 and continued in earnest in 2018, finally caught up with capital markets and exposed how competitive the risk/reward tradeoff of cash – that safe, boring proxy for patience – had become.

COTW: The Powell Put

The “Fed put” is a term that describes the view held by many market participants that the Fed is generally willing and able to adjust monetary policy in a way that is bullish for stocks.

COTW: Central Banks No Longer Supporting Markets

We have long contended that asset purchases by central banks contributed – directly or indirectly – to gains in global stock markets (represented here by the MSCI All Country World Index).

COTW: No Revenue, No Problem

There is no hard-and-fast rule, but “story stocks” are generally defined as those trading at prices substantially out of line with current fundamentals (revenue, earnings, cash flow, etc.) as a result of a positive story that suggests larger profits down the road.

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