Developed Countries

Overweight – Downgrade Alert Banks stocks troughed in mid-August, sniffing out a sell-off in the bond market, and we continue to recommend an above benchmark allocation in the S&P banks index. This is a global phenomenon as even the ultimate global value group, Eurozone bank equities, bottomed out on August 15 alongside their U.S. peers. The latest Fed Senior Loan Officer Survey painted a bright picture on both the demand and supply of credit. In more detail, bankers reported that a rising number of credit categories reversed course and demand for loans slingshot higher, likely as a delayed consequence of the dramatic fall in interest rates since last November (bottom panel). Encouragingly, bank officers also reported that they were willing extenders of credit. Our in-house calculated overall gauge of loan tightening standards fell compared with last quarter, signaling that at the margin it is easier to get a loan (middle panel). Bottom Line: Continue to overweight the S&P banks index, but keep it on the downgrade watch list, acknowledging the yield curve and manufacturing related risks. Please see the following Weekly Report for more details. The ticker symbols for the stocks in this index are: BLBG: S5BANKX – WFC, JPM, BAC, C, USB, PNC, BBT, STI, MTB, FITB, CFG, RF, KEY, HBAN, CMA, ZION, PBCT, SIVB, FRC. ​​​​​​​

Special Report

Highlights Investors should pay particular attention to definition and methodology when evaluating value versus growth strategies, both academically and in practice. Value investors should focus on non-U.S. markets, especially the emerging market small-cap universe. Growth investors should focus on large caps, especially the U.S. large-cap universe. Small-cap investors should focus on value. Large- and mid-cap investors should not be making bets between value and growth strategically. Tactical style rotation should be done only when valuation spreads reach extreme levels.  GAA remains neutral on value versus growth, but prefers to use sector positioning (cyclicals versus defensives, financials versus tech and health care) and country positioning (euro area versus U.S.) to implement style tilts. Feature Investing by way of style is as old as investing itself. Value versus growth has been one of the most frequently asked questions among our clients of late, particularly given the sharp style reversal in recent weeks. In this report, we attempt to answer some of the most often-asked questions on value versus growth. We have arranged these questions into five separate sections: First, we look at 93 years of history of the Fama-French value and growth portfolios to see how value, growth, and size have interacted over time, because academics have mostly used the Fama-French framework. Second, we look at how comparable U.S. style indices are, including the S&P, the Russell and the MSCI, since practitioners mostly use these commercial indices as their benchmarks. Third, we investigate if international markets share the same value-growth performance cycles as the U.S., using the MSCI suite of value-growth indices (since MSCI is the only index provider that produces value-growth indices for each market under its global coverage). Fourth, we investigate if pure exposure to value and growth can actually improve the value-growth performance spread by comparing the pure style indices from the S&P and the Russell to their standard counterparts. Finally, we present the GAA approach to style tilts in a section on our investment conclusions. 1. Is It True That Value Outperforms Growth In The Long Run? There has been overwhelming academic evidence supporting the existence of the value premium.1 Academically, the “value premium”, also known as the HML (high minus low) factor premium, or the value outperformance, is defined as the return differential between the cheapest stocks and the most expensive. Even though Fama and French used book-to-price as the sole valuation criterion,2 many researchers have combined book-to-price with other valuation measures such as earnings-to-price, sales-to-price, dividend yield,3 and so on.  There is also academic evidence suggesting that “value outperformance is almost non-existent among large-cap stocks.”4 What is more, in 2014 Fama and French caused a huge stir by publishing “A Five-Factor Asset Pricing Model” working paper demonstrating that “HML is a redundant factor” because “the average HML return is captured by the exposure of the HML to other factors” (such as size, profitability, and investment pattern) based on U.S. data from 1963 to 2013.5 For non-quant practitioners, especially the long-only investors, value and growth are two separate investment styles, even though the style classification shares the same principle as the academic “value factor.” Their definitions vary, as evidenced by how S&P Dow Jones, FTSE Russell, and MSCI define their value and growth indexes (see next section on page 7). In general, value stocks are cheap, with lower-than-average earnings growth potential, while growth stocks have higher-than-average earnings growth potential but are very expensive. The indices published by commercial index providers do not have very long histories, however. Fortunately, Fama and French also provide value-growth-size portfolios on their publicly available website.6  Table 1 shows that for 93 years, from July 1926 to June 2019, U.S. value portfolios in both large-cap and small-cap buckets based on the well-known Fama-French approach have returned more than their growth counterparts, no matter whether the portfolios are equal-weighted or market-cap-weighted. Most strikingly, equal-weighted small-cap value outperformed its growth counterpart by over 10% a year in absolute terms, and has more than doubled the risk-adjusted return compared to its growth counterpart. Table 1Fama-French Value-Growth-Size Portfolio Performance* Some media reports have claimed that value stocks are “less volatile” because they are on average “larger and better-established companies.”7 This may be true for some specific time periods. For the 93 years covered by Fama and French, however, this common belief is not supported. In fact, value portfolios in both the large- and small-cap universes have consistently had higher volatility than growth portfolios, no matter how the components are weighted. The excess returns, however, have more than offset the higher volatilities in three out of four pairs, with the exception being market cap-weighted large-cap growth, which has a slightly higher risk-adjusted return due to much lower volatility than its value counterpart. From a very long-term perspective, the value outperformance does come from taking higher risk. Further investigation shows that the superior long-run outperformance of value relative to growth came mostly in the first 80 years of Fama and French’s 93-year sample. In more recent years since 2007, however, value has underperformed growth significantly in three out of the four Fama-French value-growth pairs, with the equal-weighted small-cap value-growth pair being the sole exception, as shown in Table 2. Even though the equal-weighted small-cap value has still outperformed its growth counterpart in the most recent period, the hit ratio drops to 54% compared to 76% in the first 80 years, while the magnitude of average calendar-year outperformance drops to a meager 1.3%, compared to 12.5% in the first 80 years. Table 2The Fight Between Value And Growth* Statistical analysis is sensitive to the time period chosen. How have value and growth been performing over time? Chart 1 shows the long-term dynamics among value, growth, and size. The following conclusions are clear: Value investors should favor small caps over large caps, while growth investors should do the opposite, favoring large caps over small caps, albeit with much less potential success (Chart 1, panel 1). Small-cap investors should favor value stocks over growth stocks (panel 2). Value outperformance in the large-cap space (panel 3) is much weaker than in the small-cap space (panel 2). Chart 1Fama-French Value-Growth-Size Peformance Dynamics* Asset owners and allocators should pay special attention when selecting benchmarks for value and growth. Fama and French define small and large caps based on the median market cap of all NYSE stocks on CRSP (Center for Research In Security Prices), then use the NYSE median size to split NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ (after 1972) into a small-cap group and a large-cap group. The value and growth split is based on book-to-price, with stocks in the lowest 30% classified as growth, and the highest 30% as value. Interestingly, small-cap value and small-cap growth account for only a very small portion of the entire universe, as shown in Charts 2A and 2B. Chart 2ASmall-Cap Value-Growth Portfolios* Chart 2BLarge-Cap Value-Growth Portfolios* Value stocks’ average market cap is about half of that of growth stocks, in both the large- and small-cap universes (panel 3 in Charts 2A and 2B). Again, this does not support some media claims that value stocks are larger and better-established companies. However, it does add further support to the claim that all investors should favor small-cap value stocks. Unfortunately, “small-cap value” is a very small universe. As of June 2019, the CRSP total U.S. equity market cap was $26.2 trillion, with small-cap value accounting for only 1.5% (about $383 billion); even large-cap value comprises only a relatively small weight, 13% (US$3.5 trillion). The U.S. market is dominated by large-cap growth stocks with a heavy weight of 56% (US$14.7 trillion, as of June 2019). This is encouraging because academic research does show that the value premium among large caps is weak. But the large-cap value weakness mostly started from 2007, after 80 years of strength relative to large-cap growth (Chart 1, panel 3). The Fama-French approach is widely used in academic research, partly due to its long history from 1926. For non-quant practitioners, especially long-only investors, however, commercial indexes from FTSE Russell, S&P Dow Jones, and MSCI are more often used as performance benchmarks. In this report, we study a series of commercial value-growth indexes in the U.S. and globally to shed light on value-growth dynamics, and how asset allocators can incorporate them into their decision-making processes. 2. Not All U.S. Style Indexes Are Created Equal Three major index providers have style indices. They are FTSE Russell (which launched the industry’s first set of value-growth indexes in 1987), S&P Dow Jones, and MSCI. MSCI is the only provider that has a full suite of value-growth indices for all individual markets under coverage. While all three provide “standard” style indices that include the full component of the parent index, the FTSE Russell and the S&P Dow Jones also provide “pure” style indices. There are two major differences between “standard” and “pure” style indices: 1) the standard indices are market-cap weighted, while the “pure” indices are weighted based on style score. 2) Standard value and standard growth have overlapping components, while pure value and pure growth do not share any common components. Other than book-to-price, the value variable used by the Fama-French approach, the three providers have added different variables in the determination of value and growth, as shown in Table 3. This also reflects the evolution of the industry’s understanding on value and growth. For example, when MSCI first launched its style index in 1997, it used only book-to-price, but changed its approach in May 2003 to the current “multi-factor two-dimension” framework. Table 3Value-Growth Index Criteria Because of the differences in index construction methodology, value-growth indices for the U.S. have behaved differently. The S&P 500, the Russell 1000, and the MSCI standard (large and mid-cap) indices are widely followed institutional benchmarks, with back-tested history dating to the 1970s. Chart 3 shows the relative value/growth performance dynamics from the three index providers, together with that from Fama and French (market value-weighted, to be consistent with the approach from the index providers). One can observe the following: Chart 3Which Value/Growth? None of the three pairs looks exactly like Fama-French’s market-cap value-weighted value/growth. This raises the question of how historical analysis based on the long history of Fama-French value/growth portfolios can be applied to the commercial indices. In the first cycle from 1975 to February 2000, all three index pairs made a round trip, with flat performance between value and growth. Also, even though the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 were more closely correlated with one another than with the MSCI, the three were quite similar. In the current cycle that began in February 2000, however, Russell value/growth has rebounded much more strongly than the other two. But in the down period that started in 2007, the three indices performed in line with each other, as shown in Table 4. Table 4U.S. Style Index Performance* In addition, the difference between S&P and Russell does not just lie between the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000. It actually exists in every market-cap segment, as shown in Chart 4. Unfortunately, MSCI does not provide history from 1975 for the detailed cap segments. In the current cycle since February 2000, S&P value rebounded the least between 2000 and 2006. Why? Chart 4Know Your Benchmark Further investigation reveals some interesting observations, as shown in Chart 5. Chart 5Value/Growth: Russell Vs. S&P At the aggregate level, the S&P 1500, the Russell 3000 and their respective style indices have performed largely in line with one another in the most recent cycle starting from February 2000 (Chart 5, panel 4), reflecting the industry trend of index convergence. In different market cap segments, however, the divergence is still prominent, especially in the small-cap space (panel 1). The S&P 600 has consistently outperformed the Russell 2000 in both the value and growth categories. In addition to different style factors, this consistency also reflects different universes, size distribution, and sector exposure, as explained in an earlier GAA Special Report on small caps.8 Managers with Russell 2000 as their performance benchmark could simply beat it by doing a total-return-performance swap between the Russell 2000 and the S&P 600. Bottom Line:  Asset owners and allocators should pay special attention when selecting benchmarks for value and growth.  3. How Have Value And Growth Performed Globally? MSCI is the only index provider that also produces value-growth indices for each equity market under its global coverage, using the same methodology. Unfortunately, only the “standard” (i.e., large- and mid-cap) universe has a long history, dating from December 1974. Charts 6A and 6B show the value/growth dynamics in major DM and EM markets. The relative performance of MSCI DM value versus growth shares a similar pattern to that of the U.S. in the latest cycle since 2000, but looks very different in the period before 2000 (Chart 6A). The ratio of EM large- and mid-cap value versus growth did not peak until February 2012, about five years after the peak of its DM peer (Chart 6B, panel 1). On the other hand, EM small-cap value has resumed its outperformance versus growth since early 2016 after having peaked around the same time as its large-cap counterpart. Chart 6AIs Value Dead In DM? Chart 6BIs Value Dead In EM? The global value/growth dynamics also show that the “value outperforming growth” effect is more prominent in the small-cap space. But why has small value also underperformed small growth in most DM markets? Our explanation is that the EM universe is much less efficient than the DM universe because there are not many quant funds dedicated to the EM small-cap space –  in addition to the fact that, in general, EM small caps are much smaller than those in DM markets. This is also in line with our finding that, in general, factor premia are more prominent in the EM universe.9 Bottom Line: Value premium is more prominent in non-U.S. markets, especially the EM small-cap universe. 4. Do Pure Style Indices Improve Performance? Both S&P Dow Jones and FTSE Russell provide pure-value and pure-growth indices. Unlike the standard value-growth indices, which target about 50% of the parent market cap, the pure-style indices include only stocks with the strongest value and growth characteristics. There is no overlap between the two. We prefer to use sector and country positioning to implement style tilts tactically. In theory, the pure-style indices should outperform the standard-style indices because of their concentrated exposure to style factors. How do they do in reality? Table 5 shows that in terms of absolute return, this is indeed the case for 14 out of the 18 pairs of indices from S&P and Russell for the period between 1998 and 2019. However, the higher returns from greater exposure to style factors have largely come from much higher volatility in 17 out of the 18 pairs. Pure style has higher volatility than standard style in general, the only exception being the Russell mid-cap value space. As such, on a risk-adjusted basis, pure style is not necessarily better. Table 5Purer Is Not Necessarily Better Charts 7A and 7B show the different performance dynamics for the S&P and Russell families of style indices. For the S&P indices, pure growth has outperformed standard growth for the entire period in all three market-cap segments, but only the S&P 500 pure value outperformed its standard counterpart. Therefore, more concentrated exposure to style characteristics has improved the value-growth spread only in the large-cap space, but it has actually worsened the value-growth spread in the mid- and small-cap universes (Chart 7A). Chart 7AS&P Pure Styles* Chart 7BRussell Pure Styles* For the Russell indices, it’s clear that there were a lot more tech stocks in its pure-growth indices leading up to the 2000 tech bubble, because pure growth shot up significantly more than the standard growth before the bubble burst, and also crashed more severely following it. Overall, only in the small-cap space did the value-growth spread improve by the more concentrated exposure to style factors. However, this improvement was not because of the outperformance of the pure-style relative to the standard indices. In fact, both pure value and pure growth in the small-cap universe underperformed their standard counterparts, but pure growth performed even worse (Chart 7B and Table 5). 5. Investment Conclusions Value and growth can mean very different things and behave very differently. Investors should pay special attention to the definitions and methodologies when evaluating style indices or strategies, both academically and in practice.  Depending on an investor’s mandate, the following is recommended: Value investors should focus on non-U.S. markets, especially the emerging market small-cap universe. Growth investors should focus on large caps, especially the U.S. large-cap space. Small-cap investors should focus on value. Large-and mid-cap investors should not make bets between value and growth strategically. Tactical style rotation should be done only when valuation spreads reach extreme levels. Price-to-book is the only common variable used in the determination of value and growth by academics and practitioners. Its track record as a systematic return predictor has been poor, as shown in panel 2 of Charts 8A and 8B. Another factor we have a long history for is dividend yield. Its predictive power is even worse than that of price-to-book (panel 3). Chart 8AValuation Is A Poor Timing Tool In The U.S. Chart 8BValuation Is A Poor Timing Tool Globally Many factors have been used in conjunction with price-to-book by both academics and practitioners to time the rotation between value and growth. However, the results have been mixed. Regression models that correctly predicted in the past may not work in the future. For example, a regression model based on valuation spread and earnings-growth spread using data from January 1982 to October 1999 successfully predicted the rebound of value outperformance starting in early 2000,10 but the universal suffering of value funds over the past several years implies that this model may have given many false signals. Chart 9 demonstrates how difficult it is to use regression models as a timing tool for value and growth rotation. A simple regression is conducted between value and growth return differentials (subsequent 60-month returns) and relative price-to-book. For data from December 1974 to July 2019, the r-squared for the MSCI world is 0.38 and for the U.S. it is 0.09. In hindsight, both models predicted the value outperformance starting in early 2000. However, the gaps between actual value and fitted value started to open, long before 2000. By late 1998, the gaps were already wider than the previous cycle lows, yet they continued to widen as value continued to underperform growth until February 2000.  Chart 9How Good Is The Fit? What should investors currently do, based on these models? The gaps are large, but not as large as in early 2000. At which point should investors start to shift into value given its more than 12 years of underperformance? We have often written that we prefer to use sector and country positioning to implement style tilts.11, 12 This preference has not changed. Value and growth indices have sector tilts that change over time. Currently, the S&P Dow Jones large- and mid-cap value indices have a clear overweight in financials but an underweight in tech and health care compared to their growth counterparts (Table 6). Table 6Sector Bets In Value And Growth Indices* Chart 10Prefer Sector And Country Positioning To Style Tilts We have been neutral on value and growth, but would likely change this view if we change our country equity allocation between the U.S. and the euro area, and our equity sector allocation between cyclicals and defensives as well as between financials and information technology (Chart 10).     Xiaoli Tang, Associate Vice President xiaoliT@bcaresearch.com Footnotes 1Antti Ilmanen, Ronen Israel, Tobias J. Moskowitz, Ashwin Thapar, Franklin Wang, “Factor Premia and Factor Timing: A Century of Evidence,” AQR Working Paper, July 2, 2019. 2Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French, “Common risk factors in the return on stocks and bonds,” Journal of Financial Economics, 33 (1993). 3Clifford Asness, Andrea Frazzini, Ronen Israel and Tobias Moskowitz, “Fact, Fiction, and Value Investing,” The Journal of Portfolio Management, Vol. 42 No.1, Fall 2015.  4Ronen Israel and Tobias J. Moskowitz, “The Role of Shorting, Firm Size and Time on Market Anomalies,”Journal of Financial Economics, Vol 108, Issue 2, May 2013 5Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French, “A Five-Factor Asset Pricing Model,” Working Paper, University of Chicago, September 2014. 6Fama-French value-growth-size portfolios. 7Mark P. Cussen, “Value or growth Stocks: Which are Better?” Investopedia, Jun 25, 2019. 8Please see Global Asset Allocation Special Report titled “Small Cap Outperformance: Fact or Myth?” dated April 7, 2017, available at gaa.bcaresearch.com. 9Please see Global Asset Allocation Special Report titled, “Is Smart Beta A Useful Tool In Global Asset Allocation?” dated July 8, 2016, available at gaa.bcaresearch.com 10Clifford S. Asness, Jacques A Friedman, Robert J. Krail and John M Liew, “Style Timing: Value versus Growth,” The Journal of Portfolio Management, Spring 2000. 11Please see Global Asset Allocation Quarterly Portfolio Outlook, “Quarterly - March 2016,” dated March 31, 2016, and available at gaa. bcaresearch.com. 12Please see Global Asset Allocation Quarterly Portfolio Outlook, “Quarterly - April 2019,” dated April 1, 2019 available at gaa.bcaresearch.com.  

Dear Client, BCA’s New York conference takes place next week on September 26-27, and I look forward to meeting some of you there. Because of the conference, our next report will come out on October 3. Dhaval Joshi Highlights If the WTI crude oil price breached $70, Germany’s net export growth would suffer a short-term relapse. If the WTI crude oil price breached $90, Germany’s economic growth would suffer a much longer setback. The WTI crude oil price is now trading at $59, well below even the first pain threshold. Hence, at the moment, the oil price ‘spike’ is a minor irritant rather than a major risk to a German (and European) economic rebound in the fourth quarter. Stay overweight the Eurostoxx50 versus the Shanghai Composite and Nikkei225. If the WTI price stabilises well below $70, we intend to initiate an overweight to the DAX versus global equities. German bunds are a structural short relative to U.S. T-bonds. Feature Chart of the WeekOil Price Oscillations Have Explained German Growth Oscillations With A Spooky Precision It is touch and go whether Germany suffered a technical recession through the second and third quarters.1 We will know in about six weeks’ time, once the statisticians have finished crunching the numbers. But for the financial markets, this is old news. A technical recession in Germany during the second and third quarters is already baked in the market cake. The economy and financial markets are entwined in a perpetual dance. In a dance, sometimes one person decides the steps and sometimes the other person does, but the couple always moves together. And so it is with the economy and markets. The ZEW indicator of (German) economic sentiment recently hit its lowest level since 2011, and the performance of the DAX versus global equities has moved in near perfect lockstep (Chart I-2). Chart I-2A German Recession Is Already Baked In The Market Cake Some people try to predict the movement of markets based on the releases of backward-looking economic data or even supposedly real-time economic data, such as sentiment surveys. Good luck with that. The markets instantaneously discount those releases. To predict the markets, the key question is: what will the future releases look like? If the German economy rebounds in the fourth quarter, then the stark underperformance of the DAX constitutes a compelling buying opportunity versus other equity markets. That said, a new potential risk has emerged: the spike in the crude oil price. Germany Is Highly Sensitive To The Oil Price Europeans are large importers of energy, with 55 percent of all energy needs met by net imports. Moreover, the volume of energy they import tends to be price inelastic. Hence, when energy prices plunge, it boosts net exports and thereby it boosts growth. Conversely, when energy prices soar – as they have recently – it depresses net exports and thereby it depresses growth.2  98 percent of Germany’s consumption of oil depends on imports. This is especially true for Germany whose energy import dependency, at 65 percent, is well above the European average. The most important energy source is still oil which accounts for over a third of Germany’s primary energy use (Chart I-3). Moreover, 98 percent of Germany’s consumption of oil depends on imports.3   Chart I-3Germany Is Highly Sensitive To The Oil Price Most of Germany’s oil consumption is for transport. On a timeframe of decades, the planned decarbonisation of all sectors by 2050 should all but eliminate fossil oil from German energy consumption. However, on a timeframe of quarters, oil consumption for transport is highly inelastic and non-substitutable. Hence, in recent years, swings in the oil price have always caused swings in Germany’s net exports (Chart I-4). Based on this excellent relationship, a likely rebound in German net exports in the fourth quarter would be threatened if the WTI crude price reached and stayed in the mid $70s. Chart I-4Swings In The Oil Price Cause Swings In Germany's Net Exports For Economic Growth, The Oil Price Impulse Is What Matters Empirically, we have found that the German economy is much more sensitive to the oil price than other European economies (Chart I-5 and Chart I-6). This could be because other drivers of the economy such as credit developments are less significant in Germany. Chart I-5Germany Is More Sensitive To The Oil Price... Chart I-6...Than Other European ##br##Economies Most analysts argue that it is the change in the oil price that is relevant for the economy. This is obviously correct for the impact on inflation, which is, by definition, the change in a price. However, it is incorrect to argue that the change in the oil price drives economic growth. Instead, it is the impulse of the oil price – the change in its change – that drives economic growth. To understand why, consider a simplified example. Let’s say a 20 percent drop in the oil price added to Germany’s net exports, causing the economy to grow 1 percent. In the following period, another 20 percent drop in the oil would cause the economy to grow again by 1 percent, so growth would stay unchanged. On the other hand, if the oil price dropped by 10 percent, the economy would still grow, but now at a reduced rate of 0.5 percent. Therefore somewhat paradoxically, though the oil price has declined by 10 percent, growth has slowed. This is because the second drop in the price (10 percent) is less than the first (20 percent) – which means the tailwind impulse has faded.   Now let’s put in the actual numbers for the oil price’s 6-month impulse. The period ending around June 2019 constituted a severe headwind impulse. This is because a 30 percent increase in the oil price followed a 40 percent decline in the previous period, equating to a headwind impulse of 70 percent.4 Allowing for typical lags of a few months, this severe headwind impulse is a likely culprit, or at least a contributing culprit, for Germany’s slowdown during the second and third quarters. As the Chart of the Week compellingly illustrates, oscillations in the oil price’s 6-month impulse have explained the oscillations in Germany’s 6-month economic growth with a spooky precision. Empirically, other explanatory factors are not needed.  The period ending June 2019 constituted a severe headwind impulse from the oil price. Now the good news. Until the last few days, the oil price’s severe headwind impulse had eased – and this fading of the headwind strongly suggested a rebound in German economic growth during the fourth quarter and beyond. This raises a crucial question: to what level would the crude oil price have to spike for the maximum headwind impulse to return, and thereby extinguish the chance of such a rebound? By reverse engineering the price from the maximum headwind impulse, the answer is the WTI crude price at $90. Pulling all of this together, the first pain threshold is WTI breaching $70, at which Germany’s net export growth could suffer a short-term relapse. The second and greater pain threshold is WTI breaching $90, at which Germany’s economic growth could be stifled for much longer.  Having said all that, WTI is now trading at $59, well below even the first pain threshold. Hence, at the moment, this is a minor irritant rather than a major risk to a German (and European) economic rebound. Stay overweight the Eurostoxx50 versus the Shanghai Composite and Nikkei225. And in the coming week or so, if the WTI price stabilises well below $70, we intend to initiate an overweight to the DAX versus global equities. The ECB Fired A Dud So much for the ECB’s promise to ‘shock and awe’ the markets. The bazooka ended up firing a dud! Unlimited QE is not really unlimited when the ECB’s asset purchase program is running close to its individual issuer limit, and its country composition cannot deviate too far from the ECB’s capital key. QE is nothing more than a signal of intent to keep policy interest rates ultra-low for a protracted period. In any case, QE is nothing more than a signal of intent to keep policy interest rates ultra-low for a protracted period. But once the markets have fully discounted this intent – as they have in the euro area and Japan – the monetary policy armoury is effectively out of ammunition (Chart I-7-Chart I-10). So it is not surprising that the ECB fired a dud. Chart I-7Monetary Policy Is Exhausted In The Euro Area... Chart I-8...But The U.S. Still Has ##br##Ammunition Chart I-9Monetary Policy Is Exhausted In Japan... Chart I-10...But China Still Has Ammunition Some people counter that there are even more exotic monetary policy options in the pipeline, such as ‘helicopter money’. However, as Mario Draghi correctly pointed out, “giving money to people in whatever form is not a monetary policy task, it’s a fiscal policy task.” Helicopter money might be a step too far, but its notion encapsulates the shape of things to come in Europe. With euro area monetary policy exhausted, the baton is passing to fiscal policy. The upshot is that in a bond portfolio, German bunds are a structural short relative to U.S. T-bonds. Fractal Trading System* Although we are structurally overweight Italian long-dated BTPs, the 130-day fractal dimension is signalling that the pace of the rally is now technically extended and therefore vulnerable to a countertrend correction. This week’s trade recommendation is to express this via a short position in the Italian 10-year BTP, setting a profit target of 3 percent with a symmetrical stop-loss. In other trades, short the U.S. 10-year T-bond quickly achieved its profit target, while short financial services versus market reached the end of its holding period in slight loss. For any investment, excessive trend following and groupthink can reach a natural point of instability, at which point the established trend is highly likely to break down with or without an external catalyst. An early warning sign is the investment’s fractal dimension approaching its natural lower bound. Encouragingly, this trigger has consistently identified countertrend moves of various magnitudes across all asset classes. Chart I-11 The post-June 9, 2016 fractal trading model rules are: When the fractal dimension approaches the lower limit after an investment has been in an established trend it is a potential trigger for a liquidity-triggered trend reversal. Therefore, open a countertrend position. The profit target is a one-third reversal of the preceding 13-week move. Apply a symmetrical stop-loss. Close the position at the profit target or stop-loss. Otherwise close the position after 13 weeks. Use the position size multiple to control risk. The position size will be smaller for more risky positions. * For more details please see the European Investment Strategy Special Report “Fractals, Liquidity & A Trading Model,” dated December 11, 2014, available at eis.bcaresearch.com. Dhaval Joshi, Chief European Investment Strategist dhaval@bcaresearch.com Footnotes 1 We define a technical recession as two consecutive quarters of contraction in real GDP. 2 Energy dependence = (imports – exports) / gross available energy. 3 According to the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources. 4 The 6-month steps in the WTI crude oil price were $74.15, $45.21, and $58.24. The first change equated to a 40 percent decrease and the second change equated to a 30 percent increase. So the 6-month impulse was 70 percent. Fractal Trading System Cyclical Recommendations Structural Recommendations Closed Fractal Trades Trades Closed Trades Asset Performance Currency & Bond Equity Sector Country Equity Indicators Bond Yields Chart II-1Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Chart II-2Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Chart II-3Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields Chart II-4Indicators To Watch - Bond Yields   Interest Rate Chart II-5Indicators To Watch - Interest Rate Expectations Chart II-6Indicators To Watch - Interest Rate Expectations Chart II-7Indicators To Watch - Interest Rate Expectations Chart II-8Indicators To Watch - Interest Rate Expectations  

Overweight The rise in the 10-year U.S. Treasury (UST) yield over the past two weeks has breathed life back into the S&P financials sector, and for the time being we are sticking with an overweight recommendation. While it remains to be seen if the rise in yields will be sustainable, BCA’s long-held view remains that the 10-year UST yield will sell off on a cyclical 9-12 month time horizon. If this is the case then financials stocks will lead the nascent sector rotation that commenced in late-August and outperform the SPX in the coming months (top panel). Foreign flows had put a solid bid under U.S. bonds and artificially suppressed yields and this is at the margin reversing. In addition, the market was hoping for a 50 bps rate cut from the Fed in the September meeting further weighing on the UST yield, but now the odds of that happening are nil. The Citi Economic Surprise Index (CESI) has also come out of hibernation and spiked in positive territory, evidence that economic data estimates had hit rock bottom. This slingshot recovery in the CESI is tonic for financials stocks (bottom panel). Bottom Line: We are sticking with the S&P financials index. Please refer to the following Weekly Report for more details.​