Stuck With You

by Ralph Cole, CFA Executive Vice President of Research

Stuck With You

We all know too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing: that has been the case with interest rates in recent years. Coming out of the financial crisis, banks needed lower interest rates so they could repair their battered balance sheets. Short-term rates came down even faster than long-term rates and allowed banks to pay virtually nothing on deposits and make loans at a substantial profit. As long-term rates have come down, banks have had to lower what they charge for loans, thus reducing their profit margins (otherwise known as net interest margins). For the last couple of years, banks have been hoping for higher rates. Thus far this quarter they have received their wish and we can see that regional bank stock prices have responded well.

Source: FactSet

The correlation between U.S. 10-year Treasury yields and the regional bank index has been remarkable. The theory is that as long-term rates rise banks will be able to charge more for the loans than they make. They will also get higher returns on bond investments that they offer. These improved profit margins will help bank earnings. Much like the relationship between oil and gasoline prices at the pump, banks will be slow to raise interest on deposits and much quicker to increase what they charge on loans. We expect rates to continue to move higher throughout the rest of the year.

Every Little Thing Is Going to be Alright

In a year when the Fed is expected to raise interest rates every piece of economic data is parsed and picked apart. This week it was retail sales and consumer comfort. Retail sales were strong, whereas consumer comfort came in weaker than expected … So let’s just step back for a moment.

Employment gains have resumed their 200,000+ trajectory from 2014. Wage growth is finally starting to flow through the economy. Consumers and corporations continue to benefit from generationally low interest rates. We believe the consumer and the economy are on solid footing and that bodes well for whenever the Fed starts raising rates - be it June, September or December. We caution all not to worry too much about the daily economic numbers or the daily movements in the stock market.

 Takeaways for the week:

• Banks are a beneficiary of higher long-term interest rates
• "Main Street" is finally feeling the positive effects of this economic expansion

Disclosures

One Thing Leads to Another

by Shawn Narancich, CFAExecutive Vice President of Research

Too Much of a Good Thing?

As Europe begins to make a down payment on its one trillion euro quantitative easing program, the U.S. dollar’s rapid gains have become parabolic and begun to take a dent out of investors’ U.S. stock portfolios. A strong currency is commonly cited for its endearing qualities of reducing inflation and attracting investment, but with the trade-weighted dollar up almost 25 percent since last summer, more and more companies are watching their bottom lines suffer as foreign profits get translated into fewer dollars. We would observe that when an asset’s orderly gains begin to rise at an accelerating rate, the asset is beginning to resemble a bubble, regardless of whether it is tech stocks in early 2000 or the dollar at present.

Bidding Adieu to ZIRP

Because the U.S. economy continues to outpace those of other developed nations at a time when the Fed is preparing to raise interest rates, we aren’t calling for a top on the dollar, but we do believe it is due for a breather. What we would conjecture is that the best of the greenback’s gains may have already been realized, acknowledging that while the Fed’s mandate to promote full employment is being realized, it is in danger of falling short of its other goal, that of maintaining stable prices (defined roughly as two percent inflation). We envision lift-off from the Fed’s zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) later this year, but with inflation increasingly subdued at the imported goods level in addition to that caused by lower oil prices, the Fed is unlikely to tighten as aggressively as the dollar would imply.

Skate to Where the Puck Will Be

We observe in bemused fashion the financial press waxing bearish about the supposed lack of storage capacity for U.S. oil production. Yes, storage builds have occurred at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery site for the commonly quoted West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil contract, as an unusually large amount of refining capacity has been temporarily idled for seasonal maintenance and one northern California refinery is offline because of the United Steelworkers’ refinery strike. This too shall pass. With gasoline refining margins now surpassing the robust level of $30/barrel (thanks to strong demand stimulated by low pump prices and discounted WTI oil), refiners are heavily incented to return idled capacity as soon as possible.

Always Darkest Before the Dawn

Are oil prices at a bottom today? Markets tend to overcorrect on the way up and do the same thing on the way down, so although fundamentals of the oil market don’t appear to support $45/barrel oil for any substantial length of time, the price of oil could go lower in the next month or two. But we don’t manage client portfolios with a one or two month time horizon and what we will say is that this cycle is playing out just like we would expect. U.S. drilling activity has plummeted in response to low oil prices, down 42 percent since September, while demand for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel hasn’t been this robust in years. By our estimation, faster demand growth and U.S. production that we believe is set to begin declining are the key ingredients to a recipe for higher prices in the second half of this year. Being overweight energy stocks has not felt good lately, but we are confident that the bearish headlines on oil herald something much more constructive for energy investors.

Our Takeaways from the Week

• Increasingly heady dollar gains are beginning to negatively impact U.S. stock prices

• The most recent declines in oil appear long in the tooth

S&P: 500 Shades of Profit

by Shawn Narancich, CFAExecutive Vice President of Research

S&P: 500 Shades of Profit

Blue-chip U.S. stocks are again in record territory, reminding investors of the powerful backdrop that near-universal easy money policy has in keeping the capital markets liquid. The start to 2015 shares parallels with the same period last year, when growth worries precipitated by a severe winter domestically and concerns about Fed tapering gave way to a better economy in the second half of the year. This time around, a seemingly intractable conflict in eastern Ukraine, our next installment of the Greek funding drama and fears of the effects of a strong dollar on fourth quarter profits combined to put a chill in markets to begin the year. But once again, stocks have climbed the proverbial wall of worry as fourth quarter profits have come in better than expected, a new truce in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian sponsored rebels was reached, and the new leaders of Greece practice the well-worn art of brinksmanship. The result for fixed income investors is reduced returns as benchmark Treasuries have lost some of their flight-to-safety bid.

Ringing the Cash Register?

With gasoline prices having plunged to the $2.00-per-gallon level, investors could be forgiven for expecting a better retail sales report than that which was delivered for January. Lower gas prices have freed up well over $100 billion of disposable income for the U.S. consumer, so why have retail sales declined for two consecutive months? Clearly, the math of lower fuel prices dampens the headline number, but the expectation is that savings at the pump will be spent elsewhere. Some of the explanation appears to reside in historical data showing that consumers don’t immediately spend windfalls from sources such as tax rebates and savings at the pump and, in deference to the latter, our opinion is that low energy costs will prove to be fleeting. Notwithstanding our skepticism about today’s low price of oil, we would observe that the U.S. consumer is in great shape, benefitting from faster job growth, benign inflation overall and the wealth effect from higher home prices and values of investment portfolios. So despite weakness in the past couple retail sales reports, we believe it’s premature to give up on the U.S. consumer. In fact, we believe consumption expenditures will lead the economy to new record highs in 2015.

Glimmers of Hope in Europe

Despite being disadvantaged by rigid labor laws that prevent free hiring and firing and excessively high tax rates the Continent’s sluggish economy picked up ever so slightly in the final quarter of last year. While a 1.4 percent growth rate is nothing to write home about, it beats recession. It also acknowledges the salving impact of low European interest rates and fuel costs, a dramatically weaker euro that has stimulated export, and tentative labor market reforms in Spain that have begun to have their intended effect. Meanwhile, Germany remains Europe’s economic engine and primary beneficiary of the weaker currency. European investors cheered the economic news and positive developments on the geopolitical front by bidding blue-chip shares there to new 7-year highs.

As the sun begins to set on another earnings season, we feel reasonably good about the results that have been delivered. For the most part, U.S. companies have done a solid job offsetting strong dollar headwinds with continued efficiency gains and additional sales from a relatively healthy U.S. economy.

Our Takeaways from the Week

•  As another decent earnings season begins to wind down, U.S. stocks are back at record highs
•  Disappointing retail sales in January are likely to give way to healthier gains ahead

Disclosures

New Year, New Worries

by Shawn Narancich, CFAExecutive Vice President of Research

Deja Vu

Much like January of last year, U.S. stocks are off to a rocky start in the New Year, thanks to a European economy on the verge of stall speed and a plummeting price of oil that’s making investors feel like something other than a small surplus of excess production is afoot. Even after the recent volatility, blue chip stock prices have still tripled since their lows exiting the financial crisis in 2009 and have outperformed international stocks by a whopping 70 percent over the past five years. The question on everyone’s mind is whether a U.S. economy, having now wrapped up what we expect to have been its third consecutive quarter of 3 percent or better growth, can continue to decouple from troubled economies abroad. We still believe that will be the case, as Americans benefit from lower energy prices and a much healthier job market, but positive equity returns in 2015 aren’t likely to come as easily as they did last year.

Banking on Profits?

Our expectation is for U.S. profits to grow by mid-to-high single digit rates in 2015 but, at least for the final quarter of last year, Wall Street expectations are much more subdued. As the fourth quarter earnings season kicks off, investors are expecting earnings to have grown at just a 1 percent clip, reflecting plunging oil prices that will assuredly dent the profits of big oil companies like Chevron and Exxon. What Wall Street may be missing is the positive impact of low oil and natural gas prices on 90 percent of the market’s constituents that are net users of oil and natural gas. While earnings for multi-national companies are likely to be dampened by the stronger U.S. dollar, a clear plurality of publicly traded companies will benefit from lower energy costs that should help boost profit margins.

Regardless of your persuasion, few will argue about the decidedly poor results that banks delivered this week as JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup reported earnings that collectively fell by 12 percent in the period. Unfortunately for investors, the numbers came up short of expectations in all but one case (Wells Fargo), prompting sell-offs in all four names. While lending volumes have picked up in recent quarters, net interest margins are under pressure as deposit costs remain near zero and new loans are underwritten at increasingly low rates. JP Morgan demonstrated that legal costs related to the housing crash remain a meaningful expense item years after the fact, while each of the investment banks reported disappointing results from fixed income, commodities, and currency trading. As reporting season transitions to a broader swath of companies next week, we expect to see more encouraging results.

Off Target

In a move only mildly surprising to those who have followed its travails in Canada, Target announced this week that it will be exiting the country just two years after its first store opening up north. Having never made a penny there, the general merchandiser’s new CEO Brian Cornell has pulled the plug, acknowledging that management couldn’t foresee profits before 2020. The result of Target’s Canadian misadventures? Nearly $6 billion of accumulated losses and write-downs, equivalent to more than the company’s entire profitability for the past two years combined. Yes, this is what gets CEO’s fired, and is a key reason why prior leader Gregg Steinhafel showed himself to the door early last year.

Our Takeaways from the Week

• Lower stock prices in the New Year reflect worries about flagging growth internationally and dislocations in key foreign currencies

• Fourth quarter earnings season is off to an inauspicious start thanks to disappointing results at four major banks

Disclosures

Here Comes Santa Claus

by Ralph Cole, CFA Executive Vice President of Research

The Federal Reserve delivered some early Christmas cheer with a new policy statement on Wednesday, and by Thursday afternoon the Dow average had advanced 700 points. Please excuse us for being frustrated by the constant attention to the Fed and the parsing of every statement they utter. This tends to happen during any Fed tightening cycle. The chart below shows the average S&P 500 performance around the last five Fed tightening cycles. As you can see, about six months before the Fed starts raising rates the market goes through a correction of 5–7 percent and volatility rises.

The U.S. economy continues to hum along, and there is no lack of positive economic indicators. We believe that the Fed will be raising short-term interest rates in the middle of next year and they are doing their best to signal that move to the markets well in advance. The most recent examples last week were jobless claims, which dropped to a six-week low, consumer comfort climbing to a seven-year high, leading economic indicators rising an additional .6 percent and retail sales increasing by the most they have in eight months. In short, there is plenty of good economic news to go around, and enough momentum for the Fed to justify raising rates next year.

Wind of Change

While oil prices fell modestly this week, energy stocks began to rally. Since the peak in oil prices in June, the S&P energy sector fell 25 percent. This week oil prices are down another 2 percent, but oil stocks in the S&P were up 7 percent. We can’t say that we are surprised. Whenever you get such a dramatic drop in prices, it tends to produce bargains. Financial buyers aren’t necessarily brave enough to step into these situations, but strategic buyers are. This week Repsol, a Spanish oil company, made an offer to buy Talisman Energy for $12.9 billion. Talisman’s share price was as low as $3.96 on December 8, and now trades for just over $9.00 per share. We made the case last week that the sell-off in oil was overdone, and it appears others are coming to the same conclusion.

Our Takeaways from the Week

• The stock market will continue to experience increased volatility in the coming months as the Fed communicates its tightening plans
• The sell-off in oil stocks is overdone, and there is value in the sector
• Our warmest wishes for a happy holiday season!

Disclosures

Black Gold?

by Shawn Narancich, CFAExecutive Vice President of Research

Decoupling

With the holiday season in full swing and U.S. investors rejoicing about another year of solid U.S. equity returns, most international investors may be forgiven for feeling like they are getting a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking. In an increasingly decoupled global economy, where China’s growth is slowing and Europe and Japan teeter on the brink of recession, 11 percent returns domestically reflect, in part, the increasingly attractive growth profile of the U.S. economy. What’s surprising is the fact that China’s stock market has risen over 30 percent so far this year, helping buoy emerging market equity returns in a year where stocks have fallen in most foreign markets. Providing better investor access to mainland Chinese equity markets (through linking the Hong Kong and Chinese markets) has helped stimulate investor demand, but the flow of economic data out of the Red Giant remains rather discouraging. Slowing industrial production growth, weaker retail sales, and moribund manufacturing activity all speak to the challenges that Chinese policy makers confront in transitioning the world’s second largest economy from an investment led juggernaut to one better balanced by consumption.

Leading the Way

In contrast, the U.S. economy is moving full speed ahead. The November retail sales growth that came in at the high end of estimates reaffirms our thesis of a healthier U.S. consumer boosted by healthy job gains, rising home prices and the falling price of oil. Healthy retail sales data bely the 11 percent sales decline over the long Thanksgiving Day weekend, indicating that the weak sales numbers were more a function of an earlier start to the holiday selling season. With government spending having apparently bottomed and capital spending on the rise, the error of estimates for Q4 GDP is once again higher.

Crude Thoughts

All of which brings us to the topic that seems to be on everyone’s mind nowadays – oil. Now down 46 percent since June, U.S. black gold is far from it at the moment. Yet we continue to believe that the fundamentals of oil aren’t as bad as the price implies. Developed economy inventories are near five-year averages, global demand continues to grow and, most importantly, because of oil’s correlation with economic growth, GDP globally continues to expand in a world of accommodative monetary policy. Contrast today’s environment with 2008, when oil plummeted over 70 percent in eight months, a washout that coincided with consumer price shocks from $4.40/gallon gas and a global economy on the verge of collapse. The best cure for low oil prices is low oil prices, and at today’s level of around $60/barrel, we expect global petroleum exploration and development spending to fall by 25 percent or more in 2015, sowing the seeds for tighter markets and higher prices.

Indeed, evidence of the supply response to come is already upon us. Lower prices are reducing oil companies’ cash flow, leaving them with less money to reinvest in new wells. We are just beginning to see U.S. shale producers announce their 2015 capital budgets and, so far, the anecdotes support our contention that investment levels will drop dramatically. Indeed, November’s new U.S. well permits number, down 45 percent sequentially, offers investors a taste of the supply response to come. Conoco has announced a 20 percent drop in its capital spending and small independent producer Oasis is cutting its 2015 cap ex budget by 44 percent. Dozens of other independent U.S. producers, those responsible for the domestic energy boom of recent years and which are largely responsible for doubling U.S. production over the past six years, will come to the confessional between now and the end of January.

With less money being expended to replenish reserves from shale wells that deplete up to 50 percent of recoverable reserves in the first two years of production, we expect the oil markets to tighten faster than investors currently believe. We would observe that the incremental U.S. liftings that have driven production growth globally are of much shorter duration than the marginal production of 2008 from the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater projects can take 5-10 years to produce first oil and, when it finally comes, wells under extreme pressure miles below the seafloor produce at persistently high flow rates for project lives that can last up to 30 years. The point is that supply elasticity is likely to bite much faster this time around and, even with the production backdrop pre-shale, low prices didn’t last for long in 2009. So in this festive season, be thankful for the boost to disposable income that today’s low oil prices provide, but don’t expect them to last.

Our Takeaways from the Week

• The U.S. continues to demonstrate its global economic leadership as blue chip stocks prepare to close out another good year
• $60 oil prices provides a meaningful boost to U.S. consumers, but low prices are likely to prove fleeting

Disclosures

10 Investment Themes to be Thankful For

by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President

This week as we gather with friends and family to celebrate Thanksgiving we thought it appropriate to reflect upon recent investment themes for which we are thankful.

Top 10 Investment themes to be thankful for:

1. The midterm elections are over. More important than the outcome is the fact that the elections have been decided and the markets have a reprieve from the election cycle until mid-2015. However, like Christmas displays now appearing in stores prior to Halloween, the 2016 election will start to dominate the news far sooner than it needs to.
2. The Federal Reserve is more open and transparent than it has ever been in its history. As part of the Bernanke Fed, there was an attempt to be more open and transparent relative to communicating interest rate moves to the markets. This transparency has been continued with the Yellen Fed and has been effective in setting the expectations for investors as to the next moves of the Federal Reserve. This openness helps to mitigate the uncurtaining around Fed actions.
3. Unemployment is at 5.8 percent. At the end of 2009 unemployment was at nearly 10 percent. While the labor market has been painfully slow to heal, the rate jobs are being added each month means we should reach theoretical full employment sometime in 2015. Theoretical full employment is thought to be around 5.4 percent unemployment, as every person of working age cannot be employed in the economy due to a variety of reasons.
4. Oil prices have declined precipitously this year. While a decline in oil prices has been a headwind for energy stocks, it is great for U.S. consumers. When gas prices decline, it directly puts money into consumers’ pockets and should help consumer discretionary stocks.
5. The municipal bond market has extraordinarily low default rates. Despite the recent default in Detroit and Puerto Rico's widely publicized troubles, the municipal bond market defaults are exceedingly rare. According to Moody's, the default rate for the entire 43 years in which the data is available is .012 percent.
6. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise short-term interest rates sometime in 2015. This is good news because if this does indeed happen it demonstrates the strength of the U.S. economy. If the Federal Reserve is compelled to raise rates to keep the economy from overheating, it speaks volumes about the robust economic growth in the U.S.
7. The United States has a healthy level of inflation in the economy. Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index is running at around 1.7 percent annually. Too much inflation in an economy is damaging, such as what was experienced in the United States in the 1970s. Conversely, too little inflation can be toxic to an economy. Deflation is when inflation turns negative and prices grind lower. This can cause a negative feedback look whereby consumers and businesses delay purchases in hope of getting lower prices
8. The U.S. dollar is strong. It is said that money flows where it is treated best, and, with the robust U.S. economy, our dollar is appreciating against many foreign currencies. This will spur foreign investment in our financial markets.
9. The current economic cycle shows no signs of overheating. A question we get asked frequently is how much longer does this business cycle have to go? Economic cycles die of overheating, not old age. This has been a painfully slow economic recovery that has been around for approximately 5 years. A slow growing economic expansion with no signs of a bubble in the economy has the potential to last.
10. Corporate earnings remain strong. According to FactSet Research, of the 487 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the third quarter of 2014, 77 percent have reported earnings above the mean estimate and 59 percent have reported sales above the mean estimate. This equated to a blended earnings growth rate of 7.9 percent for the previous year as of the end of the third quarter.

Disclosures