Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (October 12

Risky assets remained in favor during the past week, generally helped along by fairly robust economic data and better-than-expected corporate earnings reports. A number of bourses, crude oil, inflation-linked bonds and high-yielding corporate bonds and currencies recorded fresh highs for the year, whereas gold hit an all-time high of $1,070.20 per ounce.

Assets such as government bonds and the US dollar saw fading demand as safe havens, now that the global economy is on the mend. Similarly, credit default spreads tightened markedly and the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) declined to its lowest level since early September 2008.

The Dow Jones Industrial Index passed a psychological milestone this week as the Index broke above the 10,000 level for the first time in a year, although it then declined again to fall shy of the roundophobia number by four basis points by the closing bell. The Dow first broke above 10,000 more than ten years ago in 1999 and has since done so on 26 occasions. Yes, a ten-year buy-and-hold index investor has had no capital gain over the period!

Meanwhile, according to the Financial Times, a survey of 44 leading economists by the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) showed the jobs that were lost during the Great Recession are not expected to return before 2012, while anemic wage growth of only 1% this year and 2.2% next year is forecast - the slowest two-year period on record. “But the way that investors are almost relying on unemployment to stay high [and central banks not to start exiting from the exceptionally low interest rates any time soon] demonstrates that the recovery, in markets and the economy, remains on shaky foundations,” warned FT’s investment editor, John Authers.

The past week’s performance of the major asset classes is summarized by the chart below - a set of numbers that indicates an increase in risk appetite.

A summary of the movements of major global stock markets for the past week, as well as various other measurement periods, is given in the table below.

The MSCI World Index (+1.4%) and MSCI Emerging Markets Index (+2.1%) both made headway last week to take the year-to-date gains to +25.6% and an impressive +70.4% respectively. Interestingly, Chile is now only 1.5% down from its July 2007 highs and could be one of the first markets to wipe out all the financial crisis losses.

Notwithstanding a down-day on Friday, US indices closed higher for the week. The year-to-date gains remain firmly in positive territory and are as follows: Dow Jones Industrial Index +13.9%, S&P 500 Index +20.4%, Nasdaq Composite Index +36.8% and Russell 2000 Index +23.4%.

Top performers among stock markets this week were Sudan (+22.6%), Kazakhstan (+8.9%), Cyprus (+7.6%), Egypt (+6.0%) and Hungary (+5.5%). At the bottom end of the performance rankings countries included Nigeria (-4.2%), Thailand (-4.0%), Qatar (-3.2%), Bahrain (-2.8%) and Ireland (-2.4%).

Of the 99 stock markets I keep on my radar screen, 76% recorded gains, 21% showed losses and 2% remained unchanged. (Click here to access a complete list of global stock market movements, as supplied by Emerginvest.)

John Nyaradi (Wall Street Sector Selector) reports that, as far as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are concerned, the winners for the week included United States Gasoline (UGA) (+11.1%), United States Oil (USO) (+8.9%), PowerShares DB Energy (DBE) (+8.8%) and iShares S&P GSCI Commodity (GSG) (+7.4%).

On the losing side of the slate, ETFs included iShares MSCI Thailand (THD) (-6.0%), Market Vectors Solar Energy (KWT) (-2.8%), Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy (TAN) (-2.6%) and ProShares Short MSCI Emerging Markets (EUM) (-2.5%).

Referring to the declining US dollar, the quote du jour this week comes from 85-year-old Richard Russell, author of the Dow Theory Letters. He said: “Now I’ll let you in on an awful secret. The US, despite all its BS talk, really wants a lower dollar. The fact is that the US is doing absolutely nothing to defend the dollar. Of course, if the Fed wanted to defend the dollar they could halt their mass printing of dollars, and they could raise interest rates. And Bernanke could win the 800 meter race at the next Olympics at Rio.

“But let’s be rational - how in God’s name is the US going to pay off trillions in debt? By raising taxes? Impossible. They could renege on the debt like Argentina - unthinkable. But there is a way - they’ll try to minimize the importance of the debt with a cheaper, devalued dollar. That’s the time-honored US way, but loyal Americans don’t believe it. If they did, gold would be selling at $4,000 an ounce.”

Russell added: “It’s all so smarmy, but c’mon, what do you think the Fed has been doing since World War II? It’s been systematically inflating. They can’t fool me, I was around after the War, and I remember prices in 1945. Maybe the chief culprit was Alan Greenspan, but Bernanke is carrying on. There’s a lot of inflating coming up. ‘Strong dollar policy.’ Bite your tongue, and give me a break.”

Other news is that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) closed another bank on Friday, bringing the tally of US bank failures in 2009 to 99 (124 since the beginning of the recession). Meanwhile, CreditSights, which tracks the dismal data, predicts (via MarketWatch) that we could be no more than 10% of the way through this cycle of bank collapses, which is sure to be the worst run of closures since the Great Depression.

Next, a quick textual analysis of my week’s reading. Although “bank” still features prominently, the key words have started taking on a more normal pattern compared with the crisis-related words that have dominated the tag cloud for many months. “Recovery” is also gaining in prominence.

The major moving-average levels for the benchmark US indices, the BRIC countries and South Africa (where I am based) are given in the table below. With the exception of the Shanghai Composite Index, which is trading marginally below its 50-day moving average, all the indices are above their respective 50- and 200-day moving averages. The 50-day lines are also above the 200-day lines in all instances.

The US indices are creeping closer to the so-called 50% retracement levels (i.e. regaining half the loss suffered between the October 2007 highs and March 2009 lows). The levels are: 10,346 for the Dow Jones Industrial Index and 1,121 for the S&P 500 Index.

The September highs and October lows are also given in the table as these levels could define a support area for a number of the indices.

“We regularly note that the earnings reporting season often marks the end of the market trend into earnings announcements. The reversal tends to occur during the second week [last week] of reporting. Given this is expiration week, which often creates a short-term peak on the usual manipulation, the odds favor a short-term stock market peak late this week or next week. Of course any unexpected ugly news, like negative revenue, earnings or guidance from several key companies could commence a stock downdraft,” said Bill King (The King Report).

Talking of earnings, the third-quarter earnings season has progressed on an upbeat note since Alcoa’s results announcement on October 7 marked the onset of the reporting cycle. It is still early days in this period, but 85% of US companies have so far beaten earnings estimates. According to Bespoke, the current beat rate is well above any other quarter since at least 1998. ”Even with analysts raising estimates significantly leading up to the earnings season, companies have still managed to come in better than expected so far,” they said.

Additionally, Bespoke also highlighted that while the earnings per share numbers grab the headlines, it is what companies say about future quarters that impacts equity prices most on their reporting days. As shown in the graph below, 20.3% of US companies have raised guidance so far this earnings season. Bespoke’s report said: “The highest reading for this number has barely broken 15% in any prior quarter this decade. And if we compare the percentage of companies raising guidance versus the percentage of companies lowering guidance, no other quarters come even close to this one. It will be hard to keep this up as the earnings season progresses, but it’s also shaping up to be a record-breaking quarter on the positive side.”

Importantly, one needs to assess what is priced in by the stock market. Useful research comes from David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist of Gluskin Sheff & Associates, who said: “We re-ran our regressions with the latest tightening in spreads and breakout in equity valuation and found that US investment grade credit is now priced for 2.5% GDP growth in the coming year (was 2.0% two months ago) and the S&P 500 is now de facto pricing in 4.8%, which, by the way, is now basis points shy of what it was discounting in the summer/fall of 2007. And, backing out the fair-value P/E from the corporate bond market, and yields have been backing up sizably in recent weeks, we can see that the S&P 500 is now pricing in $85 of operating earnings, which we think will be, at best, a 2013 story. In other words, the rally continues to move further away from the fundamentals.”

However, Rosenberg’s bearish prognostications are not universally accepted. In a rebuttal (via Clusterstock), Eddy Elfenbein created the chart below of profits as a share of GDP. “They’re clearly compressed, and if they revert to a historical standard, it means earnings have some spring in them,” said the report.

Jeremy Grantham, who has just announced his retirement as chairman of GMO, put matters into perspective in a Kiplinger article, saying: “The recent rally has been very speculative, favoring risky assets over the past few months. I’m sorry if you missed investing at the market’s March lows, but don’t compound the damage to your portfolio by chasing gains in risky assets. We’re at the beginning of a seven-year period of lean returns. You should only be buying the highest-quality blue-chip com�panies, where valuations are most attractive.”

As stated before, share prices have moved too far ahead of economic reality. This calls for a cautious approach in anticipation of the market working off its overbought condition and fundamentals reasserting themselves. I will bide my time while the fundamentals play catch-up.

Economy
“After improving steadily this past summer, global business sentiment has remained largely unchanged so far this fall, consistent with a global economy that is experiencing a tentative economic recovery. The recession is over but the nascent recovery is not quickly gaining traction,” according to the results of the latest Survey of Business Confidence of the World by Moody’s Economy.com. “Businesses remain more upbeat about the outlook into next year and broader economic conditions, and dourer when considering the strength of their sales and intentions to hire. South Americans are the most positive and North Americans generally the most negative.”

As far as hard data are concerned, China’s economy gained new impetus, according to US Global Investors. “Passenger car sales in September rose 84% year on year to 1.02 million units. Housing starts jumped 56% in September from a year earlier, the fastest pace of growth in at least five years.

“China’s exports declined 15.2% year on year in September, the smallest contraction in nine months, while imports dropped only 3.5% year on year as the domestic economy continued to recover. Exports rose 7.7% on a month-on-month basis, adjusted for seasonality.” The stronger export performance follows a similar trend in South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.

“Singapore, which led Asia into recession, on Monday pointed the way to further regional recovery with strong third-quarter economic growth … The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said GDP expanded 14.9% on a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter annualized basis in the June to September period, after a comparable revised increase of 22% the previous quarter,” reported the Financial Times.

Further good news on the global economic front came from Eurozone industrial production that expanded for the fourth month in a row in August. Output rose by 0.9% from July, when it increased by a revised 0.2%.

A snapshot of the week’s US economic reports is provided below. (Click on the dates to see Northern Trust’s assessment of the various data releases.)

Thursday, October 15
� Inflation remains a non-issue, for now
� The quandary between initial claims and total continuing claims

Wednesday, October 14
� Minutes of September 22-23 FOMC meeting - more of the same
� Q3 consumer spending expected jump likely, but muted growth in Q4
� Import prices are turning around
� Restocking - one of the conduits of economic growth in the months ahead

Further evidence that the recession that began in December 2007 has ended, came from the Philly Fed report that was positive for the third straight month. According to Bespoke, “the last time this indicator was positive for three straight months was from September through November 2007, which was the last three months leading up to the start of the recession”.

Dissecting the retail sales data shows that trends improved all over, with the exception of auto-related sales due to “Cash for Clunkers”. The chart below, courtesy of Clusterstock takes September’s year-on-year sales change (Sep 09 versus Sep 08) and subtracts August’s year-on-year sales change (Aug 09 versus Aug 08). It thus shows the change in the retail sales trend. “Yes, this matters: American retail trends have to become less negative before they go positive,” said the report.

The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) September meeting indicated that most participants thought the recession was over. Although they expected the recovery to be weak initially, most members also upgraded their expectation for near-term growth.

Participants generally expected inflation to remain low in the near term. “The Fed is in the most favorable spot in the near term with regard to inflation because the excess capacity in the economy allows the Fed to maintain a focus on economic growth and leave inflation on the back burner, for now,” said Asha Bangalore (Northern Trust).

Cautioning against bullish expectations, David Rosenberg said (via MoneyNews) that the economy was being held together by very strong tape and glue provided by the Fed, Treasury, and Congress, and that the recovery would be weak.

He predicted the economy would stagnate this quarter and then grow no more than 2% in 2010. The economy won’t take on the “V” shape of previous rebounds, Rosenberg said. “It’s going to look like this whole string of lowercase Ws for the next five years.”

Week’s economic reports
Click here for the week’s economy in pictures, courtesy of Jake of EconomPic Data.

Date	Time (ET)	Statistic	For	Actual	Briefing Forecast	Market Expects	Prior
Oct 14	8:30 AM	Export Prices ex agriculture	Sep	0.0%	NA	NA	0.7%
Oct 14	8:30 AM	Import Prices ex oil	Sep	0.6%	NA	NA	0.3%
Oct 14	8:30 AM	Retail Sales	Sep	-1.5%	-2.7%	-2.1%	2.2%
Oct 14	8:30 AM	Retail Sales ex auto	Sep	0.5%	-0.3%	0.2%	1.0%
Oct 14	10:00 AM	Business Inventories	Aug	-1.5%	-1.2%	-1.0%	-1.1%
Oct 14	2:00 PM	FOMC Minutes	Sep	-	-	-	-
Oct 15	8:30 AM	Initial Claims	10/10	514K	540K	520K	524K
Oct 15	8:30 AM	Continuing Claims	10/03	5992K	6000K	6000K	6067K
Oct 15	8:30 AM	Core CPI	Sep	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
Oct 15	8:30 AM	CPI	Sep	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%
Oct 15	8:30 AM	Empire Manufacturing	Oct	34.57	17.5	17.25	18.88
Oct 15	10:00 AM	Philadelphia Fed	Oct	11.5	13.5	12.0	14.1
Oct 15	11:00 AM	Crude Inventories	10/09	.334M	NA	NA	-0.98M
Oct 16	9:00 AM	Net Long-term TIC Flows	Aug	$28.6B	NA	$30.0B	$15.3B
Oct 16	9:15 AM	Capacity Utilization	Sep	70.5%	70.1%	69.8%	69.9%
Oct 16	9:15 AM	Industrial Production	Sep	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	1.2%
Oct 16	9:55 AM	Mich Sentiment Preliminary	Oct	69.4	74.0	73.3	73.5

Thursday, October 22
� Initial jobless claims
� Leading economic indicators
� FHFA Housing Price index

Markets
The performance chart obtained from the Wall Street Journal Online shows how different global financial markets performed during the past week.

“The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain,” said Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership. Let’s hope the news items and quotes from market commentators included in the “Words from the Wise” review will assist the thinking brains of readers of Investment Postcards and take the emotion out of their investment decisions.

That’s the way it looks from Cape Town (where we are blessed with balmy spring weather at the moment).

* Dr Prieur du Plessis is chairman of Plexus Asset Management and writes the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog (www.investmentpostcards.com)