One-Minute Summary: We, for one, are very glad October is over. See below for what we think has gone on. When all markets correct, we usually find it’s a good idea for the dust to settle and see what has fundamentally changed. As we’re fond of saying, prices change more than facts and the last few weeks have seen investors hitting the sell button and asking questions later.

The markets finished higher for the week but sill had one of their worst months for some time. Earnings were phenomenal with the weighted average growth rate at 24%...that’s up from 19% a week ago but that's what happens when big index weightings like Google, Apple and Facebook turn in 30% to 40% growth rates. The market looks very oversold to us. Expect healthier markets once November elections are done.

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This is a recording of our October 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: Earnings and trade news, especially China as manipulator.

One-Minute Summary: It’s difficult to pinpoint the catalyst for the market sell-off this week. Most of the culprits were known for weeks. Trade, China, rates, tech problems, October seasonals. We knew all that. No central bank said or did anything they hadn't said already.

So what was it? We'd point to two factors. One, technical. There are plenty of algorithm strategies. They see a price break and start dumping stocks to protect the positions. So, when Nasdaq broke its 200-day moving average on Wednesday, a lot of trading strategies kicked off. Don't expect great numbers from quant or hedge funds this year.

Two, rates. Tuesday was also a day when the U.S. Treasuries fell. There were some big Treasury auctions that didn't help. But markets panic when investments meant to move in opposite (stocks and bonds) directions start tracking together. Treasuries rallied later in the week so normal service resumed. We'd also point out that our own “Fear” measures (gold, Yen, Swiss Franc and the 2-Year Treasury) barely moved so this wasn't a wholesale rush to safety.

We think most of the recent 25bp increase in the 10-Year Treasury is catch up. It was clearly over sold and the rally on Friday brought that back to only a 10bp increase. Many investors have played the inverted yield curve story…that, yes, short rates would increase but longer rates would remain anchored because the economy was going to peak soon. We feel that's broadly true but the 10-Year hadn't moved enough to adjust. The economy, after all, will probably grow around 3% this year, which is close to its 70-year average. Yet Fed Funds are at their lowest since 1964.

There was no major economic data. Inflation came in low and consumer confidence dipped a little. We would not consider either relevant to the week.

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The Days Ahead: Fed meets and will raise rates.

One-Minute Summary: Stocks reached another record high. We're now up 10.1% for the year and up 15% since the mini correction in February. Small caps have done even better at 16.1% and 19%.

We've seen stocks rotate. That's when stocks that were previously unloved come back in favor. We looked at sectors like Consumer Staples, one of the worst performing sectors, which was down 5% to the end of August but rallied 2.3% so far in September. Tech, the clear winner for most of this year, is down for September.

It’s happening at the stock level, of course. Exxon, the sixth largest company in the S&P 500, was down 4% from January to August. It’s up 6% so far in September. It’s the same story with companies like Caterpillar, Altria, Cigna and some major insurance companies. What this tells us is that prior favorites like Tech and Small Cap are taking a breather or open to profit-taking and lagging companies are having their day. It doesn't change our Small Cap outlook…Tech is different, it’s under some regulatory pressure and much more expensive. Small Caps have a relatively high exposure to REITs, Financials and Specialty Retail…all of which have come under recent, temporary pressure.

The dollar looks like it peaked a month ago. It was up 9% from February but has since weakened against some key currencies…down 4% against the Swiss Franc, 3.5% against the Euro, 2% against the Yen and 3% against sterling. Yes, the dollar has the rate advantage but exchange rates are also driven by confidence, diversification and capital flows. The U.S.’s twin deficits (current account and budget deficit) are heading the wrong way and eventually they’ll show up in the exchange rate.

We don’t think anyone’s winning the trade war. Despite the big numbers from the Administration, the tariffs amount at worst, to $60bn, which is less than 0.3% of U.S. GDP and a drop in the bucket compared to the $220bn of tax cuts coming into the U.S. economy. Because so much of the imports from China are intermediate goods (here’s the list, it’s 195 pages), the costs may show up in higher prices or squeezed margins some months from now. But it won't be big and it won't solve the broader “Made in China 2025” problems.

Also big news: the sector definitions for the S&P 500 will change on September 24. We’ll no longer have a tech sector at 28% of the index. Instead we’ll drop Telecom and have a new Communication Services group. It will bring in some companies which are now Consumer Discretionary, like Comcast and Netflix, and some which are now in Tech, like Google and Facebook and will be around 11% of the S&P 500. Expect some rebalancing trading on Monday.

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This is a recording of our September 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: Second estimate of Q2 GDP and Personal Income.

One-Minute Summary: There are indications that markets are becoming inured to tweets. What would have shattered confidence a few years ago now passes for normal. The noise-to-signal ratio in investments is always high. What seems important at the time, probably doesn't count very much for long term investments. We look at the economic cycle, inflation, earnings and rates. Data on most of those fronts didn't change much.

Stocks had a good week, especially small caps. Emerging Markets were up 2.5% but the news from China (trade) and Turkey (currency) was unchanged. Put it down to summer volumes. The main story was the dollar, which weakened by 1.6%, its worst week since February.

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The Days Ahead: Jackson Hole Symposium, which is often a good source of Central Bank think. Very thin economic reports and corporate earnings season is all but done.

One-Minute Summary: Consumer confidence fell. That surprised some but we think it’s not tied to claims and employment, which are running well. But to wages. I know we bang on about this a lot and there are plenty of others following the same story.

Wage increases are barely positive and we believe even those numbers are inflated by supervisory pay. In other words, non-supervisory employees are seeing negative growth in real wages. There are many more workers than bosses so we think the average number is misleading. And it’s been happening all year. There are plenty of plausible and conflicting reasons why this is happening but none are important to markets right here right now. We'll just leave it that consumer spending cannot sustain a 4% growth rate. Wages aren't strong enough.

Gold was down (it usually drops if the dollar strengthens). The S&P 500 finished mostly higher with defensive sectors (telecomm and staples) ahead. The 10-Year Treasury was up. Economic news was mixed. Slow housing starts. Strong retail sales. Productivity growth stayed around its recent, not-so-great trend. Tesla dropped and Elon Musk apologized.

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The Days Ahead: Earnings mostly over. Productivity report

One-Minute Summary: Strong week for equities with not much to change the tone of good results, modest inflation and economic numbers and a truce of sorts on the trade side.

Tesla said, “enough of this reporting nonsense, we’ll go private”. Then thought about it. Then couldn’t decide. Normally, we’d ignore stocks like these but the company has a record short position and there’s a lot of money at stake proving or disproving the Tesla dream. We raise it because, well, it’s just not good when i) CEOs announce market sensitive news by Tweet ii) there are convertible and iii) regular bond holders to consider and iv) there’s a very convoluted process for buying out shareholders that may just leave them shareholders, if they want. It’s just, you know, not good governance. And they're not the only ones. Call us old fashioned. Here and here have the best take on it and the SEC is on the case.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) had a good week. It reports on a Saturday to keep the news cycle at bay. One big change was that unrealized gains on the stock portfolio now report through the Income Account. This is a weird rule. Berkshire holds $50bn of Apple stock, which is around 10% of Berkshire’s market capitalization. If Apple goes up, Berkshire now has to recognize that through the income statement. So, in Q1 investments showed a loss of $7.8bn and in Q2, a profit of $5.9bn. You get volatility in return for transparency, I suppose. Some might like that. The core operating business did well and that was mostly what drove the stock up 5% for the week.

The 10-Year Treasury auction went well. As we wrote last week, this was a record amount of $26bn and we were concerned dealers would have trouble placing it all. But no, it was well bid. But it adds to our concern that the yield curve will invert. Meanwhile, the TIPS curve inverted last week for the first time in 10 years. We should note that the yield curve inversion is not a sure recession indicator (see here) but more of a concern that growth will slow. Which we already know from other data.

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The Days Ahead: Big 10-Year Treasury auction. Inflation numbers.

One-Minute Summary: One of those weeks when you think lots of stuff happened, markets must be going bonkers. But stocks had a good week. Earnings continued to do well and of course, Apple, had a strong week. It’s now 4% of the S&P 500 and $1 trillion. It’s an even higher weighting in 8 out of 10 of the largest ETFs, ranging from 4% for an S&P 500 tracker and 15% in the Technology Sector fund (ticker XLK). Not to spoil the party, but we’d remind readers that Altria has been a much better stock since Apple’s IPO back in 1980. One hundred dollars invested in Apple back then is worth $55,000. For Altria it’s $88,000. The slow and steady increase in Altria along with dividends was a better investment than the long no-dividend policy of Apple and the 17 wilderness years. Still, great company and justifies much of the run-up in the S&P 500 in the last few weeks.

Trade was front and center again. The U.S. Trade Representative raised the stakes by increasing tariffs on $200bn of goods from 10% to 25% but not until September. The Chinese shot back announcing yet unspecified tariffs on $60bn of U.S. imports. The U.S. exports around $120bn of goods to China every year so, yes, the Chinese may be running out of retaliatory measures.

There’s a sort of trade truce with the EU right now so expect more on the China trade for a while. If markets seem numb to the trade issues it's because there’s still a big gap between what’s been threatened and what’s been implemented. However, the Yuan/$ rate is getting a lot of attention. The Yuan has weakened by 8% since April, negating much of the effects of higher tariffs. That's one reason why we’re a little cool on Emerging Markets right now and taking protection.

Elsewhere, the job numbers were lower than expected and average hourly earnings didn't move much. The numbers won't change the Fed’s mind on a September hike. The 10-Year Treasury broke through 3% for one day and settled back to 2.95%. If a 3.9% unemployment rate isn't enough to push yields higher, what is? We'd say earnings and wages (not increasing), a better trade deficit (no), more confidence from the Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing sector (no), more aggressive talk from the Fed (not there either), or higher inflation (see next week but probably not).

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This is a recording of our August 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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