Politics, vaccination resistance and the Delta variant; US economic recovery update; big tech reliance on acquisitions to fuel growth

COVID and the Delta variant; the Fed as firefighter and arsonist; US-China economic divorce picks up steam; and the pig-snake inflation timetable (how long until we know if there’s a permanent wage/price rise).

Every two years, we take a close look at the performance of the private equity industry given its rising share of institutional and individual portfolios.  Our findings this year: the private equity industry is still outperforming public equity, but this outperformance narrowed as all markets benefit from non-stop monetary and fiscal stimulus, and as private equity acquisition multiples rise.  We examine manager dispersion, benchmarks, co-investing, GP-led secondary funds, the torrid pace of industry fundraising and manager fees in this year’s piece.

Absent decarbonization shock treatment, humans will be wedded to petroleum and other fossil fuels for longer than they would like. Wind and solar power reach new heights every year but still represent just 5% of global primary energy consumption. In this year’s energy paper, we review why decarbonization is taking so long: transmission obstacles, industrial energy use, the gargantuan mineral and pipeline demands of sequestration and the slow motion EV revolution. Other topics include our oil & gas views, President Biden’s energy agenda, China, the Texas power outage and client questions on electrified shipping, sustainable aviation fuels, low energy nuclear power, hydrogen and carbon accounting.

Biden goes for broke on growth, driving coincident and leading indicators to all-time highs; the Value recovery and where it goes from here; COVID herd immunity, the path to normalcy and rising concerns about thrombosis risks from vector vaccines.

If long-term US interest rates stay below 2%, that’s a great sign for equity investors. But if they don’t… it’s amazing to see the pretzels that people contort into to convince themselves that rising rates are not a problem for equities. Also: an early look at the Zoom shock on commercial and residential real estate, and the diverging COVID trends in the US vs Europe.

Short stories on the global recovery, plummeting COVID infections, Larry Summers & the bond market, SPAC sponsors, renewable energy, the Texas power outage and the battle for the Republican Party.

In this month’s note, we look first at the SPAC capital raising boom. Our main focus: returns to date for SPAC sponsors and investors, and the large wealth transfers taking place among SPAC participants. Second topic: Biden’s early stage energy policies (ban on new oil & gas leases on Federal lands, Keystone XL pipeline termination and conversion of Federal fleet to EVs) will probably end up increasing US oil & gas imports more than they reduce emissions.

Equity markets are flying. So is COVID. So are corporate reactions to Congressional objectors.

Michael Cembalest’s views on what will drive markets and the economy in 2021, as well as the challenges we face that stimulus and vaccines can’t solve.