How can an equity manager possibly keep up with the QQQ—an ETF that’s almost 50% invested in the six largest U.S. companies?

Easy! Own the vehicle that benefits the most from a collapse in global trade volume and an escalating cold war between the U.S. and China—the EEM (iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF)!

Read this week's Major Trend.

As we wade into the waters of second-quarter earnings, muddied by economic shutdowns and suspended guidance, we thought it might be a good exercise to pull back from the “micro” of firm-level beats and misses and examine the “macro” picture that is the Great Earnings Washout of 2020.

One of the signature traits of the U.S. small cap market is the prevalence of money losing companies. A recent tally indicated that prior to Covid, 38% of small caps were reporting trailing year losses despite the widespread economic strength of 2019.

The non-seasonally adjusted headline CPI rose 0.6% (y/y) in June, a bit stronger than market estimates. The Core CPI maintained its 1.2% annual pace (Chart 1), which is also a tad stronger than the market expectations. There was very little market reaction  to these new numbers since investors have learned to look through these numbers after COVID-19 and the latest numbers are not enough to impact any policy directions in the near term.

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The strong market rebound in the second quarter lifted the relative return of Growth vs. Value to an all-time high by the end of June. Chart 1 reveals that the cumulative S&P 500 Growth / Value return spread hit a new record last month, surpassing the previous high reached at the end of the Tech bubble in June 2000. 

Market perma-bulls deserve high marks for their persistence, yet, despite all that’s transpired in 2020, their case is exactly the same as six months ago: Extreme stimulus won’t “allow” a significant stock market drop, nor any further economic deterioration.

There’s one trend that’s lasted almost as long as the bull market and economic expansion and it hasn’t definitively come to an end. The current Large Cap Leadership Cycle hit the nine-year mark in April.

We encourage diversity of thought in our shop, but even pessimists among our ranks have a hard time making the case for a ten-year negative return for U.S. stocks, which was recently predicted by the founder of a large hedge fund.

What can slowdown the outperformance of Growth stocks? It turns out, the answer to that persistently-unanswerable question is “Not much.” Not even a global pandemic-driven sell-off and swift rebound. From the market high in February through June 30th, Growth handily outperformed every other factor.

Following the market bottom, the rebound across retail industries has been robust, but a divide has emerged. Consumers’ needs and behaviors have dramatically shifted as former lifestyles were uprooted. This swift change in economics has resulted in clearly-defined sets of winners and losers among retail industries.

There has been chatter about the Fed implementing the so-called Yield Curve Control (YCC). Although the latest FOMC minutes suggest that YCC is not on the agenda for now, we believe the chance of YCC is probably much higher than the market currently anticipates.

One of the signature traits of the U.S. small cap market is the prevalence of money-losing companies. Our recent tally indicates that even prior to COVID-19, 38% of small caps were reporting trailing year losses despite the widespread economic strength of 2019.

As of May 2020, domestic equity mutual funds and bond mutual funds have seen record outflow, while money market mutual funds have received record net inflow. Domestic equity and bond ETFs are also experiencing record net inflow YTD.

Read this week's Major Trend. 

During the first two months of the rally (and +30%) off the March lows, we noted that the usual cyclical leaders of a new bull market were underperforming on a relative basis, and there had been nothing even close to the “breadth thrust” that often accompanies an initial bull market up-leg.

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Turn on financial television at any random time, and you’re likely to soon hear the argument that still-high U.S. stock market valuations are “justified” by extremely-low interest rates. We’ve countered that these low U.S. rates are simply a reflection of the secular slowdown in economic and earnings growth.