Uncertainty Is Good For The Stock Market

The following is an excerpt from our weekly Market Brief. If you’re interested in learning more about Market Briefs and the Macro Ops Hub, click here.

Here’s an interesting question: Is the Trump administration’s erratic policy and governing style bullish or bearish for stocks?

Lately, I’ve read a number of analyst notes talking about how the current political uncertainty spells trouble for the stock market. They all include the line “…if there’s one thing markets don’t like, it’s uncertainty about the future.” I think that’s lame thinking.

I would argue that this “uncertainty” is bullish for equities, at least over the short-term.

I say this because this “uncertainty” is feeding into the Fed’s rake hiking decisions. Remember the hawkish tone coming from Fed members back in December? That seems to have been reversed since Trump took office and started significantly shaking things up. Fed members have cited the uncertainty over future fiscal policy as a key reason to err on the side of caution in raising rates.

FOMC member, Neel Kashkari, wrote a post this week explaining his reasoning for voting to keep rates steady at last month’s meeting. The whole post is worth reading (link here). but here’s Kashkari’s concluding remarks:

We are still coming up somewhat short on our inflation mandate, and we may not have yet reached maximum employment. Inflation expectations remain well-anchored. Monetary policy is currently somewhat accommodative. There don’t appear to be urgent financial stability risks at the moment. There is great uncertainty about the fiscal outlook. The global environment seems to have a fairly typical level of risk (though that can change quickly). From a risk management perspective, we have stronger tools to deal with high inflation than low inflation. Looking at all this together led me to vote to keep rates steady.

Fed President James Bullard, also cited fiscal uncertainty in a speech he gave this week saying “It is unlikely that fiscal uncertainty will be meaningfully resolved by the March meeting… We don’t have to move. We have a lot of fiscal uncertainty. Why not wait until that is more clearly resolved?”

So Trump’s unconventional governing style is creating uncertainty over the future which is making the Fed step back from its rate hiking path. This is supportive of equity prices over the short-term. The breakouts this past week in many of the indexes seem to confirm this.

This creates the unusual situation where a more steady governance and a clearer picture of future fiscal policy would likely lead to faster rate hikes and thus be a net-negative for markets.  

The Fed conducts a Senior Loan Officer (SLO) Report every quarter. In this report they survey roughly 60 large commercial banks and up to 24 large foreign banks with branches in the US. The survey is intended to provide a quarterly update on credit availability and demand as well as developments in lending standards. It’s a good barometer of the overall credit market and provides us useful insight into how the credit cycle is developing.

The most recent SLO came out this past week and the data confirms our belief that we’re in the later stages of the current business cycle.

The below chart shows that loan officers are reporting an acceleration of tightening lending standards for credit cards (above zero means tighter credit).

US Fed Senior Loan Officer Survey

The same is true for medium to large businesses.

US Medium-Large Firrms Tightening Credit

Some of this tightening is being driven by rising delinquencies on credit card debt and as interest rates tick higher we should see that trend spread to other areas like mortgages as well.

US Deliquency Rates

We can see the impact this slight tightening is having on loan growth which has slowed and appears to be turning over. Another sign that is typical in the later stages of a credit cycle.

So though credit is still extremely loose and capital is easy to come by, the beginnings of a reversal in that trend are appearing in the lending standards and delinquency data. That means we should see this weakness begin to be reflected in the credit markets in the coming months and things like high-yield debt will start to roll over.

The above is an excerpt from our weekly Market Brief. If you’re interested in learning more about Market Briefs and the Macro Ops Hub, click here.

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Brandon Beylo

Value Investor

Brandon has been a professional investor focusing on value for over 13 years, spending his time in small to micro-cap companies, spin-offs, SPACs, and deep value liquidation situations. Over time, he’s developed a deeper understanding for what deep-value investing actually means, and refined his philosophy to include any business trading at a wild discount to what he thinks its worth in 3-5 years.

Brandon has a tenacious passion for investing, broad-based learning, and business. He previously worked for several leading investment firms before joining the team at Macro Ops. He lives by the famous Munger mantra of trying to get a little smarter each day.

AK

Investing & Personal Finance

AK is the founder of Macro Ops and the host of Fallible.

He started out in corporate economics for a Fortune 50 company before moving to a long/short equity investment firm.

With Macro Ops focused primarily on institutional clients, AK moved to servicing new investors just starting their journey. He takes the professional research and education produced at Macro Ops and breaks it down for beginners. The goal is to help clients find the best solution for their investing needs through effective education.

Tyler Kling

Volatility & Options Trader

Former trade desk manager at $100+ million family office where he oversaw multiple traders and helped develop cutting edge quantitative strategies in the derivatives market.

He worked as a consultant to the family office’s in-house fund of funds in the areas of portfolio manager evaluation and capital allocation.

Certified in Quantitative Finance from the Fitch Learning Center in London, England where he studied under famous quants such as Paul Wilmott.

Alex Barrow

Macro Trader

Founder and head macro trader at Macro Ops. Alex joined the US Marine Corps on his 18th birthday just one month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He subsequently spent a decade in the military. Serving in various capacities from scout sniper to interrogator and counterintelligence specialist. Following his military service, he worked as a contract intelligence professional for a number of US agencies (from the DIA to FBI) with a focus on counterintelligence and terrorist financing. He also spent time consulting for a tech company that specialized in building analytic software for finance and intelligence analysis.

After leaving the field of intelligence he went to work at a global macro hedge fund. He’s been professionally involved in markets since 2005, has consulted with a number of the leading names in the hedge fund space, and now manages his own family office while running Macro Ops. He’s published over 300 white papers on complex financial and macroeconomic topics, writes regularly about investment/market trends, and frequently speaks at conferences on trading and investing.

Macro Ops is a market research firm geared toward professional and experienced retail traders and investors. Macro Ops’ research has been featured in Forbes, Marketwatch, Business Insider, and Real Vision as well as a number of other leading publications.

You can find out more about Alex on his LinkedIn account here and also find him on Twitter where he frequently shares his market research.