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Treading cautiously, but increasingly optimistic

25 November 2020
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Hello again, and very best wishes to you all. The world continues to amaze and surprise us all, and yet financially we all have to keep moving forward… but how and in what direction? Taking clear thinking from our new chief investment officer, Fahad Kamal, we offer the following house-views as things stand in October 2020, writes Jeremy Hill from Kleinwort Hambros’ Newbury Office.

All we can do is learn from the past and have a process to guide us forward. We would be delighted to engage with you to help simplify life’s financial challenges – which is our core purpose at Kleinwort Hambros.

September was almost set up to fail. The US markets had seen a strident August rally of over 7% in dollar-terms — the strongest monthly gain since 1984 — leaving valuations looking strained. Japan had seen a similar surge, the 4%+ rally in Europe was impressive, and even Brexit-plagued Britain managed a 2% advance. Then the tone darkened: news commentaries read, “September is never a good month in election years”, “September’s often the worst month of the year”, or even just “we need a correction to get these markets looking reasonably valued.”

Seemingly on cue, US equities posted four weeks of declines in a row: Between the 2nd and 23rd, the US market slipped about 10% – a correction in market parlance. The market volatility was, ironically, triggered by the technology sector, which has been a driver of outsized returns. Over the summer, many tech stocks – especially those fostering an improved work-from-home capability – surged in value, leaving prices hard to justify. Then, for little reason other than that the sell-off had run its course, September caught a bounce to end the month, which has carried forward into October, and global equities – led by the US – are within shooting distance of all-time highs again.

With this oscillating backdrop and the US election, some may rightly ask if risk assets may be challenged again. While we accept that there are several salient risks ahead – we are far from out of the Covid-19 woods – the US election is one which has little impact on our investment decision making. Long-term investors should be more focused on where risk-assets are likely to be in November 2025, rather than November 2020.

Firstly, at the time of writing, no one knows who will win the election, if it will be controversial, or how markets will react in the short-term to what no one can predict in the first place. Four years ago, there were widespread fears of what would happen if Donald Trump were to win; few expected such an outlandish thing could occur. He did win, and markets generally rallied.

Secondly, history tells us there is little to choose from between the two main US parties in terms of equity market performance over the long-term.

From 1877 to now, the average, real (ie net of inflation) annual equity market return under Democratic regimes is +7.3%; under Republican administrations, it is +7.4%. In plain words, there is no difference between the two at the headline level for investors over time. The reason returns tend to average out over time, regardless of the party in power, is most likely because the US enjoys rule of law and established institutions that handle the basics of governance (eg enforcing contracts, ensuring peaceful transfers) relatively well. As we have noted in the run-up to myriad geopolitical risk events, our investment process seeks to evaluate the long-term fundamentals rather than focus on short-term movements.

Over the third quarter, we begun modestly adding to risk assets following our reduction during the seismic ructions in markets early in the year. As always, we are guided by our investment process:

Economic regime: Our Leading Economic Macro Indicator (LEMI) suggests the global economy has moved from a regime of “contraction” into one of “recovery”, albeit one that is slow, deeply uneven and largely dependent on the course of the Coronavirus.

Valuations: Valuations for equities – the largest source of risk and return in most strategies – remain challenging in absolute terms. However, with global interest rates near zero, there is a case for a higher than usual tolerance to valuations.

Momentum: As of the end of June, the global equity market tipped into positive territory on the 10-month moving average metric that we favour. The trend has persisted for several months – despite September’s sell-off – which supports risk-taking in equities.

Sentiment: Of the indicators we follow, some imply bullishness and some imply bearishness. Overall, sentiment is neutral.

While the above changes resulted in a recent increase in risk in most strategies, it is modest, and we remain underweight risk assets compared to our benchmarks. We recognise that the current market backdrop is more uncertain than usual and volatility is elevated – therefore we are treading cautiously, even as we are increasingly optimistic.

Linkedin2Jeremy Hill

[email protected]

020 7597 3445

                                                                                          kleinworthambros.com


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