It has become increasingly fashionable to direct scorn and ridicule at the so-called equity permabears. This is understandable, to a point. These hardened observers and investors have thrown everything at the market, only to see prices go higher almost tick-for-tick with the intensity of their objections. Their curse is increasingly obvious. They can succeed intellectually only if they bite the bullet and buy the very uptrend that they so despise. Alternatively, they can change their mind and embrace the bull market, which would probably have every other investor running for the hills. The market, by implication, would cave in, but they would not be able to claim intellectual victory as those who saw the crash coming, let alone profit from it. Whatever fate awaits the equity bears in this cycle, I am starting to warm to their disposition, at least for the purpose of judging equities in the next six months. As such, while the onus usually, and justifiably, is on the equity bears to explain why it is that the market is compelled to spontaneously combust, the burden of evidence is now increasingly shifting to the bulls. Why is it exactly that global equities are ordained to push ever higher in an environment where fundamentals and other markets suggest that they shouldn’t?
Read MoreBridgewater Co-CIO Bob Prince was ridiculed earlier this month for his comments in Davos that “we’ve probably seen the end of the boom-bust cycle.” Pundits were quick to draw comparisons to Irving Fisher’s infamous remark on the eve of the 1929 stock market crash that the equity market had attained “a permanently high plateau.” I sympathise with this interpretation of Mr. Prince’s comment. They come on the back of a 21% 12-month rally in the MSCI World, in an environment where trailing earnings have declined, by nearly 5%. In other words, the P/E multiple has gone from around 15 to just over 20 in the space of a year, and this in an environment where global growth has been slowing. To pile on even further, the recent performance of global equities has been ridiculous, with monthly returns over +2% since September. Naturally, the key for any medium-to- long term investor is to make sure to be long during such periods, but I under- stand if Mr. Prince’s declaration has contrarian investors running for exits. I can’t help but feel, however, that the world is upside down. The speed with which Mr. Prince’s comments was shot down seems to invalidate the contrarian position to me. I mean shouldn’t we be worried only if investors and analysts agreed with his comments.
Read MoreThe teaser from this week’s missive is posted below as usual, but I have a few housekeeping notes to start the year. First off, I know that I am doing less market-oriented stuff recently; I apologise. The good news is that I am diverting my energy towards a long-form essay on fiscal policy. It’ll be in the same type of format as my two previous essays on the Life Cycle Theory and the Balance of Payment. In short, I am appalled by the level of debate about economic policy these days, so I am trying to inject some context and colour on the current flurry about fiscal policy, what it is—as in what it really is—how economists think about it, and what it can and can’t do. This potentially covers huge ground, but I reckon that I have managed to distill the story into a coherent argument. It’s 80% done, and I hope it will be worth the wait. I expect to have the first draft done next month, and then it goes to the editor for a ruthless take-down. The final version should be done in March, with a bit of luck.
Read MoreAnother year almost gone, and in this case a decade too. 2019 has been a great run for anyone with even random exposure to financial assets, and in my next few posts I’ll try to map out what I think will be the main themes for 2020. I will also update the portfolio page, and discuss what went right and what went wrong on that front in 2019. It’s been a good year overall—how couldn’t it have been?—with a few costly mistakes, as per usual. I have also recently updated my writer’s page, effectively internalising that part of my work fully on this site. Go have a look! In time, I will incorporate some of my non-fiction work on this platform too. I have plenty of ideas and projects rattling around in my head, though precious little time to finish them, which is just about as good as you get it as a writer, I guess. The Podcast and Video platforms will continue too, but I am yet figure out exactly how to leverage these in a way that makes sense.
Apart from that, all that is left for me is to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. They say that blogs are dying, but I don’t buy it. In any case, I’ll keep writing, and listening, because that is what I do. On that note, I also wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to my fellow narrative-warriors and collaborators on Twitter. The quality of conversation on that platform ranges from being counterproductive, stupid, and vicious to being indispensable for my work and thinking. Luckily, the latter characteristic still dominates, for now.
See you in 2020.
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