Financials

While it was a small jump, from #6 to #5 in the sector composite ranks, Financials might be seeing the start of overall improvement. Conversely, Materials and Energy continued to drop in the latest ratings, as fundamental measures deteriorated.

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The Broker-Dealer Index (XBD) is one of just a handful of indexes to surpass its old bull market high, but its gains are far below average for the first year of a major advance. Meanwhile, the BKW Bank Index (BKX) is revisiting price levels of 25 years ago—it is just one percent above the average daily close in 1998. Yes, as a group, the big banks have been dead money for 25 years (excluding dividends).

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Although we can’t claim that the 2022 decline purged the economic and stock-market excesses for another multi-year bull, there’s nothing in the action of the S&P 500, itself, that exposes its upswing as fraudulent.

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With the halfway point of 2023 two weeks away, the S&P 500 has broken out to a 12-month high. The index has accomplished that feat 32 times during the month of June—or exactly one-third of all cases measured back to 1928.

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This year marks the 25th anniversary of a slew of major bank mergers: Wells Fargo/Norwest, Banc One/First Chicago, NationsBank/BankAmerica, Star Bank/Firstar, First Union/CoreStates Financial, and SunTrust/Crestar Financial. Who knew the KBW Bank Index would celebrate the occasion by returning to its price level of that same era?!

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With the 2020 Bridesmaid Asset Class (Small Caps) and Bridesmaid Sector (Consumer Discretionary) underperforming in 2021, the Cheapest Sector results in 2021 salvaged a bit of pride for the author of this annual evaluation. Even better, owners of the Financials sector won’t need to send the government its share of their long-term capital gains, since they’ll be holding it for another twelve months.

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For our more fundamentally-oriented readers who are repulsed by all this talk of momentum, we have an alternative. Just forget about performance and focus solely on value!

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As noted, the Bridesmaid sector strategy has underperformed what has become a more difficult benchmark in five of the last six years. Those poor results have cut the annualized excess return of this approach to just +2.1% since 1991. 

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Once again, the idea is to dispense with macroeconomic trends, sector fundamentals, comparative valuations, and to base sector selection solely on the prior year’s total returns.

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Financials has occupied the #1 overall ranking for all of 2021, thus far, but its absolute score has increased throughout the year due to well-rounded strength across the factor spectrum, reaching levels not seen in more than twenty years.

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Financials have dramatically improved their Growth profile; a move that makes the traditionally value-oriented sector one of the most well-rounded segments of the equity market.

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Impressive strength across the factor spectrum implies that the recent pop in the long-time beaten-down Financials sector should have more room to run. We highlight five attractively-rated Financials groups for investment ideas beyond the popular big-bank-concentrated Financial sector ETFs.

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March 23rd marked the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 bear-market bottom. We are all eager to turn the page on the pandemic ordeal and move forward to brighter days ahead. Looks like some big help is coming our way.

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Investors looking for the long-awaited rebound in the Value style point to the potential for rising interest rates as a possible driver of style rotation. Higher rates would benefit many Financial companies, a sector closely linked to the Value style. In fact, many commentators believe that the Value style cannot experience a major run without the participation of Financials. We launched a research effort to examine the link between Financials and Value, seeking to understand whether there is truth in this old saw, or whether this connection is more properly classified as market folklore.

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Investors looking for the long-awaited rebound in the Value style point to the potential for rising interest rates as a possible driver of style rotation. Higher rates would benefit many Financial companies—a sector closely linked to the Value style. In fact, numerous commentators believe that Value cannot experience a major run without the participation of Financials.

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Financials was the “cheapest sector” in each of the last three years, and its significant underperformance versus the S&P 500 has shaved the historical “alpha” from this strategy. Still, those souls who’ve had the stomach to own the Low P/E sector each year have beaten the S&P 500 by 2.9% per annum since 1991.

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Last month we detailed two technical shortcomings of the rally off the March 23rd market low. The stock market duly noted our critique and has issued its response.

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Small Caps lagged during the bounce off the March lows before a late-April spurt briefly pulled them ahead of the S&P 500. Still, considering that Russell 2000 losses were so much steeper than the S&P 500’s (-43% versus -33%), we would have expected something better.

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The “robustness” of the “Cheapest Sector Strategy” concept is illustrated by strong results across all rebalancing frequencies.

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With the possible diminution of “alpha” in price momentum strategies, we recommend that sector allocators consider approaches that are more countertrend or contrarian in nature.

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