Insights
Markets Break Through the Debt Ceiling
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June 05, 2023
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June 05, 2023
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Markets Break Through the Debt Ceiling |
The S&P 500 Index struggled, but managed to remain marginally positive in May amid the US debt ceiling negotiations, returning 0.4%[1] (USD). In comparison the MSCI Europe (EUR) Index, fell sharply, returning -2.3%.1 Worries about a global economic slowdown, weak Chinese economic data and uncertainty over the US debt ceiling outweighed optimism over signs of easing inflation. The MSCI Emerging Markets (USD) Index also moved down 1.7%1. Further cooling in US-China relations, resulted in the MSCI China (CNY) Index returning -5.6%1. Chinese equities have been on the ropes all year, with Hong Kong listed shares entering bear market territory this month, as measured by the Hang Seng Index. In contrast, Japanese equities performed exceedingly well, with the MSCI Japan (JPY) Index returning 4.5%.1
Whilst Japanese equities have been cheap for years, corporate reforms and Japan’s apparent exit from deflation and transition to a moderately inflationary economy, acted as a catalyst for foreign investors to buy. The US 10-Year yield remained quite volatile during the month, ending May at 3.6%2 after reaching a high of 3.8%3 in the days before month end. Equity volatility was surprising subdued during the month, with the VIX index ending the month at 17.92.
It is worth mentioning that the first couple of days of June saw a strong broad-based rally in the S&P 500 and a collapse in the VIX to 14.64, following the signing of the US debt ceiling bill. Further, whilst technology was May's best performing sector, with advances in Artificial Intelligence giving a boost to the S&P 500[1] and NASDAQ, our belief that the rest of the market would catch up was supported in the early June pickup.
Markets Break Through the Debt Ceiling
In the final week of May, the White House and Republicans reached an agreement on a prospective bill, which raised optimism that a disorderly US government default could be averted. This is positive news in the short-term, however, the true risk lies in the longer-term consequences of this policy framework. The fallout as a result of the debt ceiling deal is likely to lead to a fiscal tightening, in the form of not spending what has been already earmarked to be spent. Post-COVID fiscal stimulus has been propping up the consumer and this is now likely to decline, bringing the longer-term risk of loss of consumer strength, just as savings are declining and real incomes are coming down. This will go hand-in-hand with a tightening monetary policy.
We are currently in an environment where inflation is set to become a major challenge, however, central banks now realise that they cannot increase nominal rates as aggressively as they once did without jeopardising a particular segment of the economic landscape. At present, the market has been shorting equities, but if this situation changes and more evidence for a soft-landing outcome emerges, as our base case suggests, we may well see a substantial change in market positioning resulting in a sharp increase in upside risk across the broad equity market. We mean to participate in the upside, whilst strong labour markets appear to be leading consumption resilience and earnings resilience appears to be continuing. The bottom line is that, while there are still market uncertainties, there are still high-quality investment opportunities available to us.
Investment Implications
Economic imbalances indicate that market volatility although currently depressed, may re-emerge. While many investors believe a recession has now been pushed back to 2024, rather than 2023, defensive positioning or "waiting" for the recession can be costly. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: those who would “purchase a temporary safety6" by being overly defensive, may regret it. Moreover, investors are contending with two fat tail risks – a soft versus a hard landing. To help ensure that we can manage both risks, we are keeping portfolios balanced and well-diversified7. As we have been saying throughout 2023, it is better to be balanced than defensive.
Bearing this in mind, we increased equities in May, to ensure our risk-targeted portfolios stay in line with their volatility target, as despite the debt ceiling negotiations during the month, market volatility has remained subdued. We also made the following tactical changes in May:
SOFR Rates
We entered the SOFR rates position to reduce interest rate exposure in portfolios as short-term forward rates are expecting significant and aggressive rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve, that we do not think will be delivered. This is consistent with our view that it is unlikely that the US economy will experience a hard landing.
Chinese equities
We removed the overweight to Chinese equities, which we added in January, as we are not seeing an acceleration in economic momentum, nor earnings revisions, despite the re-opening impetus.
Copper
We removed the overweight to copper, as we believe that in the short-term, copper prices are likely to remain under pressure due to waning Chinese demand and the challenging global economic growth outlook.
The index performance is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not meant to depict the performance of a specific investment. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. See Disclosure section for index definitions.
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Advisor
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Chief Investment Officer
Portfolio Solutions Group
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