This is a recording of our March 2019 conference call. If you want to join us live next time or get future updates about new episodes, subscribe to our email newsletter: bandjadvisors.com/subscribe

Job numbers. Most of the economic data was weak. That includes the ISM Manufacturing, pending and existing home sales and personal income. But these were all very much expected. The Fed’s move back in January (“we’re patient”) looks exactly right. It's not often that expectations and results are so finely tuned. But this time we knew the tax cuts would run out of steam and uncertainty around China, Europe, trade and government shutdowns would lead to lower numbers. Jerome Powell repeated them all in his talks with Congress last week.

Two points. First, slowing, not a recession. A recession is not two quarters of declining GDP. It’s a far more complicated run of data that includes GDP, employment, claims, hours worked and trade sales (full list here). And those are not flashing red. Second, this should keep rates low for a while. The 10-Year Treasury is at 2.75%, only 20bps higher than two years ago.

It’s been a stunning start to the year. In the first two months, the S&P 500 is up 11.5%, small and mid caps up 15%, China up 27% and Europe up 11%. We'd like to see a pause but would remind ourselves that markets do not correct by going sideways. So having some protection in place seems fine.

As 2009 begins to run off the 10-year returns , we’d like to celebrate that the 10-year compound rate of return in stocks is now 16.75%.

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The Days Ahead: Shorter week. No major economic news.

One-Minute Summary: When the Fed announced it would stay patient a few weeks ago, some tired punters thought, “Aha Trump got to them.” But, the Fed was actually spot on. The economy is weakening (no, not recession). This week we saw a low CPI report at 1.6%, the NFIB (a proxy for small businesses) optimism index plunged, retail sales came in very low and on Friday, industrial production (IP) fell 0.6%. The last one is all about China. As the China index falls, so does the U.S. The business equipment sub-component of IP was down 1.5% and automotive down 15%. That’s all trade war related. The folk over at the Atlanta Fed revised down expected growth for Q4 2018 to 1.5%. It had started at 3.5%.

So growth is slower and one of our favorite Fed Presidents (here she is), reiterated the China, European, Brexit, trade and growth risks and underscored the whole “patient” mode. The 10-Year Treasury traded in a very narrow and bullish range. It’s now 2.67% and yielding only 25bps more than 3-month bills. A year ago, that was 120bps. That’s why we’re in the Treasury FRNs.

Hey, look, it’s all on trade right now. How are the talks going (“great”)? Are there concessions and commitments from the Chinese (probably)? Will the tariffs be delayed (yes)? The market feels a little nervous for sure and most indicators of liquidity are well below 2018 levels. That feels like a market wanting to go up but worried about being caught out. We're still 5% below the ding-dong highs of August but up 11% from the December lows. Again, Small Cap has outperformed by even more and Emerging Markets are up 8%.

For the record, we’d like to see a consolidation. But as we've learned along the way, “rapidly rising or falling markets usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways.”

There are lots of problems with government shutdowns. One is that the IRS missed 16 days of tax refunds. So far this year, there has been $21bn of tax refunds compared to $29bn at the same time last year. It may continue. The IRS thinks only 10% of taxpayers itemized in 2018 compared to 30% in 2017. It seems fewer people over-withheld so the normal March-April boost in retail sales may not happen (h/t Cap Eco).

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One-Minute Summary: January was a good month. Stocks up 8%, small company stocks up 11%, international and Emerging Markets up 6% to 9% and bonds trading in a narrow and bullish range.

More data confirmed that China trade talks weigh on people’s mind. The Chicago PMI index dropped from 65 to 56 in a month. We don't usually talk about this index much but it’s Chicago and Boeing is headquartered in Chicago and Boeing sells a lot of aircraft to China…2,000 in all and 1,000 in the last five years at $350m each. So when we look at the New Orders component of the Chicago PMI and see it at a two-year low, we know how sensitive things are to the trade, er, talks.

The Fed announcement (see below) did more to drive stocks than earnings. Earnings were generally good and are up 12.4% YOY. But the hard comp numbers are coming up as 2018 had all the tax cut benefits so analysts are looking at low and perhaps negative growth for Q1 2019. We're not concerned. The market has priced in the slowdown and it mostly comes from energy and tech stocks.

We're also seeing a bounce back from bombed-out stocks. There are 38 stocks up more than 20% this year but the same stocks were down 25% in 2018. This seems a good sign as the market leadership is broader and investors are not just bidding up tech names. The best sector this year has been Energy, which peaked in 2015 and fell 38% to its December low. It’s up 13% since then.

We're in an easy money phase right now. That won't last too long because the data is going to start improving. The market overdid it on the downside in 2018. It may be overdoing it on the bounce back in 2019.

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This is a recording of our January 2019 conference call.

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More Fed speakers should echo Powell’s comments. Inflation numbers out. We're always suspicious of market moves over prolonged holidays. Many traders and investors are away and some markets, like Japan, were only open for three days in nearly two weeks of business.  Europe checks out for nearly 10 days. So “small news makes big impact” or “worst day since last one” are headlines you see a lot. This is what we think is going on:

1. Economy weaker but not stopped and not near recession.

2. The inverted yield curve story is overdone but that doesn't stop people talking about it.

3. Volatility is normal. But if you haven’t seen it in a while it feels awkward.

4. The government shutdown, impasse and partisanship should not be a major problem.

5. 2018 was a bad year for multi-asset investors. The only markets not in correction or bear territory are Brazil and India.

6. Earnings and dividends are both likely to continue to grow 10%. There are no major profit warnings.

7. U.S. Treasuries have done well but they may be too pessimistic about a recession.

8. Trade and China are the very big elephants in the room. And will remain so.

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This is a recording of our December 2018 conference call. If you want to join us live next time or get future updates about new episodes, subscribe to our email newsletter: bandjadvisors.com/subscribe

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The Days Ahead: Small business optimism indicator. Fed will be in slient mode.

One-Minute Summary: We're writing this the day before the jobs number. This is typically a major data point for traders but we’re not traders and there’s probably no number that would lead us to change our outlook. Why? Well the estimate is for around 190,000 new jobs, compared to 250,000 last month but these numbers are subject to very big revisions…as much as 50,000 either way.

We know the unemployment rate will remain around 3.7%. The only item that may move the market is if there’s a big jump in average hourly earnings. But, if you've been following us, you’ll know we think real wages are unlikely to move much.

The markets had a very busy week. Much of the trading action is prop desks, algos and macro funds closing trading positions towards year-end. It’s not a time to react to headlines. Any view one has is likely to be mown down by stop loss trading. In the last 10 days, we've seen five days where the intraday move was more than 1.5%, six consecutive days of rises and one where the days started very badly and closed up.

Or as Leon Cooperman said “[quant managers] have created a tremendous amount of volatility in the market, scared the public, [and] effectively raised the cost of capital to business.”

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The Days Ahead: New jobs numbers. Unless it’s a shocker, the Fed will raise in December

One-Minute Summary: We never like markets when they depend on a single outcome or announcement. It makes for very nervous trading whenever you hear “markets are waiting on X for direction”. Last week it was Chair Powell on the outlook for rates and, of course, the President on whether there would be progress on trade talks with President Xi. That’s fine. The trade talks are front and center of any discussion about the direction of global trade and economic well-being. But just as these problems took many years to develop, they’re unlikely to be solved over a dinner. We can hope for some sort of delay on the January tariffs. Markets would like that. If it's “no deal”, we would expect risk assets to take a step down.

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Anyone hoping for a quiet week was disappointed. The market suffered a 3.5% two-day loss before recovering on Wednesday. For most investors, this year has not left much to be thankful for. Nearly all asset classes we know have weakened: gold, commodities, large cap, international, emerging, credit and event Treasuries. The S&P 500 is up for the year but by the thinnest of margins. There were no new problems last week nor were there any resolutions to the problems. We'll restate these because they're important and none really lend themselves to quick fixes:

China trade: all eyes on the G20. So far, no breakthrough

Peak earnings: companies may face higher wage bills or just decide not to expand

Economic slowdown: this week it was lower industrial production and soft, but not deteriorating, numbers in housing.

Fed rate hikes: no hint that the Fed is concerned about the weaker economy and will let up on rates

This week also saw another indicator that the Kabuki theatricals on trade are hitting home. Here’s a story about farm produce rotting because of collapsing Chinese demand. And here’s a chart showing declining Chinese import of manufacturing components and the decline of U.S. durable goods orders.

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