Opinions
Larry Berman CFA, CMT, CTA A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert A Commentary N/A Sep 17, 2018
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It's always about what the market is going to deliver relative to expectations. The bar isn't particularly high this quarter. We normally get about 70% of stocks beating earnings.
The story is going to be what they say about tariffs and margin compression. Not sure enough companies know yet what that's going to look like. If you look at the 6.5% earnings growth estimated over the next year, it doesn't seem a stretch at this point. If we get nominal GDP growth of 5-5.5%, those numbers are achievable. But that nominal GDP growth number assumes no margin pressure from tariffs and a pretty decent economic outcome.
In the "big, beautiful bill" we get some current stimulus and tailwinds over the next year, though they're not what we saw in terms of tax cuts in the TCJA passed during the first Trump administration. But there's also massive bond supply being a headwind to future growth.
It's not going away anytime soon. If the tax revenues through tariffs are elevated enough to mitigate some of the need for bonds, that would be a good story from a debt finance perspective but a bad story related to margins. Either we're going to get inflation, or margin pressures, or bond yields are going to have to back up a little bit more. It's one one of those three things or some combination of all of them. To him, the market is priced for a more Goldilocks-type of outcome.
We've been in a situation like this before, where equity markets surprise to the upside. So we can't be too confused by that. See today's Educational Segment for some ideas to deal with that uncertainty and where to put your money if you're worried about growth.
There is. Speaks to the whole universe of Canadian Depositary Receipts that have come up. You can buy fractional shares with an embedded currency hedge in a lot of the big names in the US. If you feel the CAD is very low here, and you want that US exposure, you're probably better off buying it with a CDR that has currency hedge embedded as opposed to buying the stock on the US exchange.
If you like the stock and think the CAD is expensive and likely to get cheaper, then you want to own the US dollar version of that and keep your exposure to the USD.
Larry thinks the CAD is somewhat undervalued right now in the context of the next 5 years. Fair value for the CAD is probably somewhere between 75 and 80 cents. When it's below 75 or 70, you want something that's hedged. When it's above 80-85, you want the US dollar exposure. If it's somewhere in the middle, you're a bit indifferent to the currency risk.
You can buy an ETF that's listed in Toronto that has the euro exposure. For example, ZWP gives you exposure to the euro via a Canadian holding.
This question is probably prompted by the whole narrative around a weaker US dollar and the euro getting stronger. That's very much a USD-Euro story, than a CAD-Euro story. So you might need to look more for a US holding than something in Canada.
FLUR gives you international exposure. XEU gives you broad exposure to MSCI Europe.
Are you getting compensated enough by that additional yield for a shorter-term bond to take that interest rate risk? Right now, he prefers the US to Canada. Canadian long-bond yields are about 125 bps below those of the US. So he's not wild about them.
Much prefers the long end of the US curve where the yield is north of 5% at this point. But the challenge is the currency exposure. It speaks to being a sophisticated investor in terms of bond exposure. If you think a hard landing's coming, they'd absolutely be good for a trade. Institutional investors can do these kinds of trades all day, much more difficult for individual retail investors.
Tweaking Investment Exposure
He often gets questions about whether it's a good time to invest now, and it's usually new money coming off the sidelines. Right now, the US equity market's at all-time highs. One of the ways you can be a bit more conservative at times, or aggressive at times, is by looking at different ways to get exposure to the US large-cap area. And you can do that by using factors.
He brought along a chart of 5 different ETFs as ways to play: SPHB, SPLV, SPHQ, SDY, and SPY.
SPY -- low-cost MER, broad S&P 500 exposure.
SPHB -- S&P, high beta. Rebalanced a couple of times a year into the higher-volatility names. Typically exposed to ~20% of the index.
SPLV -- S&P, low volatility. About 20% of the index, typically higher yield. In the long run, similar returns to the broader market.
SPHQ -- his favourite factor. High quality. In the long run, uses filters to give you 20 names of the highest-quality companies in the S&P. Good balance sheets, less sensitive to the economic cycle. Some dividends, some growth. High-performing names. If you can handle the ride, this is the one to buy and hold.
SDY -- a way to play the S&P with a dividend basket.
Reality is that depending on what kind of investor you are, there's a different solution for everyone. Right now, with markets at all-time highs, he's not comfortable telling people to take $$ out of the bank and put it in the market. If you did right now, he'd say to go low volatility or high dividends. Because...look at his next chart.
The next chart shows that, during volatile periods over the years, when it's bad (as it was during Covid or 2015-2016) the low volatility and higher dividend options give you a better experience. They keep you invested, with more yield and less downside. But after a correction (typically about 13%), you want to pivot and shift into high-beta names for more growth, the broad S&P, or high-quality names. But do this when markets are cheap, not when they're expensive.
Learn which tools work in which environment, but there's an ETF for just about every person out there. Always stay fully invested for the long run, as it's really the best thing people can do. But tweak your exposure, so if we go through an adverse period, it's a little bit less bad. We can't time markets perfectly.
The US economy is in fairly good shape. Labour looks good, though there's lingering inflation with the tariff impact yet to hit. Longer term, he's construction. AI will be deflationary in the long run, and the tariffs will be temporary. Valuations: markets are fully valued, though could rise on organic growth or greater expectations of future growth. He expected volatility this year, though not as deep as last April. Last quarter, the market didn't hold CEOs' feet to the fire when they said that they don't know what's happening because of tariffs, so they pulled guidance; normally, that hurts stock prices, but not last quarter. This time, investors want to know guidance. Last quarter was good, and he hopes this will be.
It is a very crowded trade, but for very good reason. As we go through the show, we'll see that things are within 5-10% of price targets. This means that it's probably a good time, maybe not to sell, but to sell some calls against a name and make some money -- certainly against the Mag 7 (which account for over 40% of the market cap of the S&P 500).
Still some pockets worth looking at. One area he really likes (and there seems to be movement toward it) is Edge AI. There's been a trend to Edge computing, getting closer to the devices out there. And you can do it these days with the computational power of the chips. It touches everything from smartphones to iPads to factory floors. Pretty well every generative AI stock out there has a considerable business in Edge AI.
They're not Blackwell state-of-the-art, but the next best thing. A year ago, they were the cat's meow. It's why NVDA popped up another 4% yesterday. Gives more legs to the whole AI revolution going on out there, with China being such a large market.
He was surprised, but pleasantly, as he's pretty overweight in the AI ecosystem.
Market. As we get into the US midterm elections, trade will be a big thing. It is most important what the US is going to do with China and Europe. Canada is reaching a soft deadline at the end of this month for free trade. He heard there is a deadline of the 20th of September. It all means uncertainty for markets and volatility around currency. Trump has to be able to talk of doing a deal on trade. It is next year's congress that will vote on all these things. He is not sure the uncertainty is going to go away. China is the most senior of the emerging markets and is down 20% from their peaks. The US is leading here. The Fed is slowing things down and that always, always ends the bull market. It could be 2 months, 6 months or a year from now but the emerging markets are showing that warning sign here.