I need to preface this one with a huge caveat: While it might appear that I am making a prediction in today’s entry to our internal market log, that’s not how I view it. Instead, my current (always subject to change) “6-month thesis” (abbreviated version below) is simply the laying out of my current (always subject to change) base case.
Speaking of market predictions, I view them, particularly published ones, as very dangerous phenomena. I see it all the time, pundits pretentiously prognosticate as if they’d have us believe they know the future; and, be that as it may, they are desperate to not let us — along with the reputations that earned them their spots in the mainstream financial media — down. Thus, with their egos firmly cemented to their predictions, they mine in clawing fashion for every data point they can unearth that would support the forecasts that — even in the face of strong real world refutation — they table-poundingly cling to.
So, no, absolutely no predictions herein, just a sharing of my assessments of general conditions and our resulting base cases.
I have found that by committing my findings and deductions to writing I remain grounded, thoughtful and, most importantly, unemotional in my constant pursuit of the knowledge of general conditions. I’ll share my notes from time to time (often of late) herein as the bulk of our readers are folks who have entrusted to us the management of their investment portfolios. We think it’s important, you clients out there, that you know what we’re thinking and, thus, why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Lastly, before I copy and paste today’s entry, you should know that not only do we here at PWA not marry our egos to our theses, we are forever on the hunt for evidence that would prove our prevailing base case wrong, per the “what can go wrong” close to the following.
3/13/19 Log Entry (excerpt):
of Reflexivity, should, for example, stock prices fail to overtake the Sept ’18
high before retesting the Dec ’18 low, will they negatively influence the trend
to the point of reversal, thus flipping the prevailing bias to negative, and
precipitating the next recession and bear market?
Odds favor general conditions withstanding what’s likely to occur over the next
few months, and, thus, favor stock prices moving above the Sept 2018 highs in
the coming weeks.
banks, and governments, will stimulate in aggressive-enough
fashion; sufficient to stave off recession this year (and likely next).
with China that will see a sharp short-lived rally in stocks. That will
embolden Trump to threaten hardball with Europe. Global equities (save for
China) will immediately tank when markets sense such. Equities tanking will
bring the sides together quickly to mend fences and make a deal. Monetary and
fiscal easing will have bolstered economic sentiment enough to sustain the
relatively short US/EU tiff.
extended, the hard-Brexiteers will soften and a deal will be struck later in
the year. The extension will relieve pressure on the pound, UK and EZ equities.
trend higher into the fall. Bonds will hold up (yields will hold down) until
trade issues are resolved; trending lower (rates higher) thereafter on the
prospects for accelerated growth and tighter central banks. The Dollar — despite the prospects for rising U.S. interest rates — will
trade lower on the prospects for the rest of the world’s economies/asset
markets catching up.
bearish for stocks! Recession risk explodes higher and we get busy adjusting
client portfolios.
A deal gets done, but existing tariffs remain. Not as bad as no-deal, but stocks will nonetheless sell
that news.
protracted US/EU trade war; which means general sentiment tanks, taking an
already weakened economy with it. And we get busy.
equities that ripples across the globe. Best case scenario, 10-20% correction;
worse case, global sentiment tanks to the point of catalyzing the next
recession. And we get busy.
both occur this year. And we get busy!