Equities

Highlights Set your overall investment strategy with two 'rules of 4' based on 10-year bond yields: If either the Italian BTP or the sum of the U.S. T-bond, German bund and JGB stays above 4 percent, then sell equities and buy bonds. If both the Italian BTP and the sum of the U.S. T-bond, German bund and JGB are in the 3-4 percent range, then remain broadly neutral. If both the Italian BTP and the sum of the U.S. T-bond, German bund and JGB fall below 3 percent, then buy equities and sell bonds. Stay neutral to Italy's MIB and Italian banks for the time being. Among the mainstream European equity markets our top pick remains France's CAC. Feature Many people believe that Italy has one of the world's most indebted economies, but this widely-held belief is wrong. Although Italy's public indebtedness is high, Italy's private indebtedness is one of the lowest in the world (Chart of the Week). This means that Italy's total indebtedness is less than that of France and the U.K., and broadly similar to that of the U.S. (Chart I-2 - Chart 1-5).1 Chart of the WeekItaly's Private Sector Indebtedness Is One Of The Lowest In The World Chart I-2Italy: Total Indebtedness = 260% Of GDP Chart I-3France: Total Indebtedness = 305% Of GDP Chart I-4U.K.: Total Indebtedness = 280% Of GDP Chart I-5U.S.: Total Indebtedness = 250% Of GDP The Myth Of Italian Indebtedness An economy's debt sustainability depends on its total indebtedness, and not on its public indebtedness or its private indebtedness in isolation. Debt becomes unsustainable when the marginal extra euro of debt results in misallocation of resources and mal-investment. At this point, the extra debt adds nothing to growth or, worse, it subtracts from growth. Therefore, debt reaches its sustainable limit when the economy has exhausted all productive uses for it. But it does not matter whether these productive uses are funded with private debt or with public debt. For example, successful economies require investment in high-quality healthcare and education. Some economies fund this with private debt, while others fund it with public debt. This means that if productive private indebtedness is low, there is more scope for productive public indebtedness. The crucial point is that Italy has extremely low private indebtedness, which means that it can afford relatively high public indebtedness before reaching the limit of debt sustainability. Right now, this is especially true because the Italian banking system remains dysfunctional, preventing the private sector from borrowing (Chart I-6). Under these circumstances, the Italian government can borrow the private sector's excess savings and debt repayments and put them to highly productive use - which will paradoxically reduce the deficit in the long term. Chart I-6Italy's Private Sector Is Not Borrowing Hence, the M5S/Lega government is following excellent economic policy in proposing a modest increase in the fiscal deficit in 2019. An appropriately sized and targeted fiscal stimulus is exactly what Italy needs right now. But this excellent economic policy will take time to bear fruit and show up in Italy's growth and deficit data. Italy's big problem is that bond vigilantes do not wait, they shoot first and ask questions later. Italy Is Especially Vulnerable To Bond Vigilantes Italy is also a world leader in running primary surpluses (Chart I-7 and Table I-1). In plain English, this means that the Italian government spends considerably less than it receives, if interest payments are excluded. Chart I-7Italy Is A World Leader In Running Primary Surpluses Table I-1Italy Has Consistently Run Primary Surpluses Put differently, Italy's government deficit results not from its operational spending relative to its income, but from the interest payments on its debt. This makes Italy especially vulnerable to the bond vigilantes. If the bond vigilantes distort Italy's interest rate, they can tip the Italian government into financial distress, even if that distress is not justified by the economic fundamentals. Is this a real risk? Sadly, yes. The euro debt crisis was essentially a liquidity crisis which resulted from bond vigilantes running amok. When irrational markets refuse to lend to sovereigns at a fair interest rate, maturing debt has to be refinanced at a penalising interest rate, causing an undeserved deterioration in the government's finances. Thereby, the irrational fear of insolvency becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Italy has an additional problem. When Italian bond prices decline, it erodes the value of the banking system's euro 350 billion portfolio of BTPs and weakens the banks' fragile balance sheets. If a bank's equity capital no longer covers its net non-performing loans (NPLs), investors get nervous. In this regard, the largest Italian banks now have euro 160 billion of equity capital against euro 130 billion of net NPLs, implying a cushion of euro 30 billion (Chart I-8). Chart I-8Italian Banks' Equity Capital Exceeds ##br##Net NPLs By Euro 30 Bn... So the markets would start to worry about Italian banks' mark-to-market solvency if their bond portfolios sustained a loss of €30 billion. We estimate this equates to the 10-year BTP yield breaching and remaining above 4 percent (Chart I-9).2 Chart I-9...The Excess Would Disappear If The 10-Year BTP Yield Stayed Above 4% The ECB solved the euro debt crisis at a stroke by committing to act as lender of last resort to distressed sovereigns at an 'undistorted' interest rate. Indeed, the commitment alone was enough to defeat the bond vigilantes without the ECB spending a single cent from its Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) program.3 But recall that the ECB only threatened its firepower when the 2-year Spanish Bono yield had breached 6.5 percent and the 10-year yield had breached 7.5 percent. It follows that if the 10-year Italian BTP yield breached 4 percent, the yield would be high enough to hurt the Italian banks, but not nearly high enough for any powerful intervention from the ECB. Hence, the 10-year BTP yield at 4 percent is the level at which we would return to a pro-defensive strategy. Conversely, a level below 3 percent would create some margin of safety providing one precondition for a more pro-cyclical investment stance. In the meantime, the current level at 3.3 percent justifies a neutral cyclical stance to Italy's MIB and Italian banks. Among the mainstream European equity markets our top pick remains France's CAC. The Connection Between Bubbles And Liquidity Crises Bubble formation may seem to have no connection with a liquidity crisis but the two phenomena are closely related. Bubble formation is simply a brewing liquidity crisis resulting from irrational euphoria rather than irrational fear. A bubble forms when value investors stop investing on the basis of a valuation framework. Instead, they get lured into the momentum herd that is participating in a strong rally, and the additional buy orders fuel the euphoria. However, once all of the value investors have joined the momentum herd, and a value investor then suddenly reverts to type and puts in a sell order, the market will suffer a liquidity crisis. There are no buyers left! And finding one might require a substantial reversal in the price to attract an ultra-long-term deep value investor. As regular readers know, fractal analysis measures whether the herding behaviour in any financial instrument is becoming excessive. The analysis suggests that developed market equities are not yet at the tipping point of excessive euphoria that signalled the last two trend exhaustions in May 2017 and January 2018 (Chart I-10). But this does not mean that there are clear blue skies ahead. Chart I-10Developed Market Equities Are Not Yet At A Trend Exhaustion The danger is not that the rich valuation is irrationally excessive, but that it is hyper-sensitive to bond yields. At low bond yields, bonds offer no price upside but substantial price downside. Confronted with this increased riskiness of bonds, equity returns justifiably collapse to the feeble returns offered by bonds with no additional 'risk premium', giving equity valuations an exponential uplift. But if bond yields normalise, the process goes into vicious reverse - the rich valuation of equities must decline as exponentially as it rose. We have defined the danger point as when the sum of the 10-year yields on the U.S. T-bond, German bund, and JGB breaches and stays above 4 percent. In summary, set your overall investment strategy with two 'rules of 4' based on 10-year bond yields: If either the Italian BTP or the sum of the U.S. T-bond, German bund and JGB stays above 4 percent, then sell equities and buy bonds. If both the Italian BTP and the sum of the U.S. T-bond, German bund and JGB are in the 3-4 percent range, then remain broadly neutral. If both the Italian BTP and the sum of the U.S. T-bond, German bund and JGB fall below 3 percent, then buy equities and sell bonds. Dhaval Joshi, Senior Vice President Chief European Investment Strategist dhaval@bcaresearch.com 1 Indebtedness defined as a share of GDP. 2 Assuming that the average maturity of Italian banks' BTPs is around 5 years. 3 The ECB's Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) program was created in 2012 in response to the euro debt crisis and facilitates the ECB's lender of last resort function to solvent but illiquid sovereign borrowers. Fractal Trading Model* We are pleased to report that our long China/short India trade achieved its 9% profit target and is now closed. This week, we note that the underperformance of the Eurostoxx50 versus the Nikkei225 is technically stretched, with a 65-day fractal dimension approaching the limit which signaled a very recent trend reversal. Hence, this week's recommended trade is long Eurostoxx50 versus Nikkei225. The profit target is 3.5% with a symmetrical stop-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 Fractal Trading Model Recommendations Equities Bond & Interest Rates Currency & Other Positions 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

Highlights Investors who are betting on a quick resolution to the U.S./China trade war following the "new NAFTA" deal and the U.S. midterm elections have likely been taken in by false hope. Stay neutral China relative to global stocks, and overweight low-beta sectors within the investable equity universe. The relative performance of Chinese industry groups since mid-June has been almost entirely determined by their beta characteristic, with almost all low-beta industry groups outperforming. Energy stocks have been among the top outperformers within the Chinese equity universe, and several factors support our recommendation that investors initiate an outright long position. While it is likely paused rather than stalled, broad "reform" as an investment theme will be less relevant over the coming 6-12 months. Consequently, we are closing our long ESG leaders / short benchmark trade. Feature September's PMI releases, both official and private, confirm that China's export outlook is deteriorating rapidly. Chart 1 highlights that the Caixin PMI is about to fall below the boom/bust line, and the new export orders component of the official PMI has sunk to a 2 ½ year low. Somewhat oddly, investors do not seem to be responding negatively to the de-facto announcement of a 25% rate on the second round of U.S. import tariffs against China. Chart 2 shows that domestic infrastructure stocks have actually been rising relative to global stocks since mid-September, and our BCA China Play Index appears to have entered a (so far very modest) uptrend. Chart 1The Export Shock Is Coming... Chart 2...But Investors Have Been Incrementally Upbeat One possible explanation for this is that investors are doubling down on the idea that China will have to aggressively stimulate in response to the shock. We have leaned against this narrative, by arguing in past reports that China's policy response to the upcoming export shock is not likely to be heavily credit-based, and that increases in fiscal spending today will involve more "soft infrastructure" than in the past.1 Chart 3 certainly shows no evidence of a spike in broad money or total credit; adjusted total social financing growth barely accelerated in August, against the backdrop of promises to front-run planned fiscal spending over the coming year. Chart 3No Major Acceleration In Credit Growth Evident Yet Chart 4Americans Support A Tough Stance Against China But a second explanation of recent investor behavior, one that we have been hearing more loudly from some market participants, is that China is waiting until after the midterm elections in the U.S. to make a deal, in anticipation that Republican losses in Congress will weaken Trump and change the political reality in terms of trade policy towards China. There are three reasons why investors holding this view are likely mistaken, and have been taken in by false hope: In the U.S., the actual implementation of tariffs lies within the control of the Presidency. Congress has delegated substantial authority to the president that would take time to be clawed back. Moreover, the president controls the execution of tariffs, and has a general prerogative over national security issues, which certainly includes the trade war with China. Democratic control of the House or Senate may cause President Trump to act even more forcefully against China, as trade will be among the few relatively unfettered policy options left to him. Chart 4 highlights that a sizeable majority of the American public views Chinese trade policy towards the U.S. as unfair, unlike the U.S.' other major trade partners. Reflecting this point, Democrats themselves maintain a hawkish stance on trade with China. This suggests that Trump will have a strong mandate to continue to demand major concessions from China even after the elections. We agree that Chinese stocks have already priced in a sizeable earnings decline, but we would still characterize buying now as an ill-advised case of trying to catch a falling knife. We highlighted in our September 19 Weekly Report that during the 2014-2016 episode Chinese stocks bottomed several months after stimulus began to take effect,2 because of a delayed decline in forward earnings. A similar situation would appear to be developing this time around: the third round of tariffs against China will likely soon be announced, the shock to Chinese export growth will soon manifest itself in the data, and yet Chinese forward earnings have only fallen 5-6% from their June peak. Bottom Line:Investors who are betting on a resolution to the U.S./China trade war following the U.S. midterm elections have likely been taken in by false hope. Stay neutral China relative to global stocks, and overweight low-beta sectors within the investable equity universe. Recent Sector Performance: A Beta Story, And A New Trade Idea Chart 5Last Week We Closed One Of Our Most Successful Calls We recommended closing one of our most successful trades of the past year in a brief Special Report last week.3 The report outlined major changes to the global industry classification standard (GICS) that took effect this week, as well as the implications for China's stock market. One key change is that Alibaba, one of the "BATs", is now part of the consumer discretionary sector and makes up roughly 60% of its market capitalization. Given this fundamental shift in the risk/reward profile of the position, we recommended closing our long MSCI China Consumer Staples / short MSCI China Consumer Discretionary trade for a profit of 47% (Chart 5). With the goal of identifying new trade ideas that are likely to outperform within the context of a trade war, Chart 6 presents the alpha and beta characteristics of 23 industry groups in the MSCI China index (the investable benchmark) from mid-June to the end of September. The x-axis of the chart represents the group's beta versus the benchmark, whereas the y-axis shows standardized alpha over the period. The chart also distinguishes between out/underperforming sectors. Chart 6Since Mid-June, Sector Performance Has Largely Been Beta-Driven Several points are notable: Largely speaking, the relative performance of Chinese industry groups since mid-June has been determined by their beta characteristic (with almost all low-beta industry groups outperforming). This supports our existing position of favoring low-beta sectors within the MSCI China index, a trade that we initiated on June 27.4 Four industry groups that belong to traditionally cyclical sectors have outperformed since mid-June and have had a beta less than 1: energy, capital goods, banks, and consumer durables and apparel. Energy and capital goods have been particularly notable, having outperformed by 24% and 15%, respectively. Technology-related industry groups have underperformed, including the pharma, biotech, and life sciences industry group within health care. Consumer services and retailers have significantly underperformed, due to the heavy influence of travel-related businesses in both indexes. Among the top performing industry groups over the past three months, Chinese energy stocks look like the most compelling trade in absolute terms. While we are normally reluctant to chase performance, several factors support an outright long position: BCA's Commodity & Energy Strategy service is bullish on oil prices, and recently increased their 2019 Brent price forecast to $95/bbl based on both supply and demand factors.5 Despite the recent outperformance of Chinese energy companies within the investable universe, they remain cheap versus global energy companies based on cash flow-based valuation metrics (Chart 7). This is true even after accounting for the fact that they are typically discounted relative to their global peers due to heavy state ownership. Chinese energy companies look reasonably priced relative to the value of global oil production (Chart 8). Chinese energy companies largely receive their revenue in U.S. dollars, which is an attractive hedge in an environment where CNY-USD may decline further. Chart 7Chinese Energy Stocks Are Cheap Versus Their Global Peers... Chart 8...And Versus The Value Of Global Oil Production Given this, we are updating our trade book and recommend that investors initiate an outright long position in Chinese energy stocks as of today. Chart 9Despite Outperforming, Absolute Capital Goods Performance Has Been Lackluster What about Chinese capital goods companies? For now, we are content with relative rather than absolute exposure, which (surprisingly) exists in our low-beta sectors trade. Capital goods companies account for almost 70% of the Chinese industrial sector, and industrial stocks have been less volatile than the broad market over the past year, in large part because they underperformed so significantly in 2017. Given this, they have been included in our low-beta sectors portfolio, despite being typically pro-cyclical. In absolute terms, though, it is far from clear that Chinese capital goods stocks will trend higher (Chart 9). Some investors are hopeful that capital goods producers will benefit from a significant acceleration in infrastructure spending but, as we noted above, the bar is high for the type of stimulus that investors have come to expect. In addition, potential weakness in property construction could be a drag, and could offset gains from a pickup in infrastructure investment.6 We recommend that investors stick with a relative position, until compelling signs of a stimulus overshoot emerge. Bottom Line: The relative performance of Chinese industry groups since mid-June has been almost entirely determined by their beta characteristic, with almost all low-beta industry groups outperforming. Energy stocks have been among the top outperformers within the Chinese equity universe, and several factors support our recommendation that investors initiate an outright long position. A Pause In Broad "Reform" As An Investment Theme Following last November's Communist Party Congress, we noted that China was likely to step up its reform efforts in 2018, and would take meaningful steps to: Pare back heavy-polluting industry Hasten the transition of China's economy to "consumer-led" growth Slow or halt leveraging in the corporate/financial sector Eliminate corruption and graft We argued that Chinese policymakers would have to set the pace of reforms to avoid a significant slowdown in the economy, but we noted that a policy mistake (moving too aggressively) could not be ruled out. We introduced the BCA China Reform Monitor as a way of tracking the intensity of the reforms, which was calculated as an equally-weighted average of the four "winner" sectors that emerged in the month following the Party Congress (energy, consumer staples, health care, and technology) relative to an equally-weighted average of the remaining seven sectors (Chart 10). In particular, we argued that a rise in the monitor that was driven by the underperformance of the denominator would be a warning sign that reforms had become too aggressive for the economy to withstand. Chart 10Reform, As A Broad Theme, Will Be Less Relevant In The Year Ahead Chart 10 highlights that the reform monitor rose for the first half of the year, driven by the gains of the numerator rather than losses in the denominator. The message of a sustainable pace of reforms, even against the backdrop of brewing trade tension, was consistent with the relative performance of Chinese stocks and was part of the reason we recommended staying overweight versus the global benchmark in Q1 and the majority of Q2.7 Since mid-June, however, the reform theme has been thrown into reverse: our reform monitor has declined, alongside absolute declines in both "winner" and "loser" sectors. The timing of this inflection point is clearly aligned with President Trump's announcement of the second round of tariffs. Given this, and our view that the U.S./China trade war is likely to get worse over the coming 6-12 months, it is likely that broad "reform" as an investment theme will be less relevant for the foreseeable future, at least relative to policymaker efforts to stabilize the economy. However, for several reasons, we view this as a pause in the theme, rather than an end: On the environmental front, Chart 11 highlights that China continues to pursue a clean air policy, at least in large population centers. Anti-pollution efforts are a signature policy of President Xi Jinping. They affect quality of life and ultimately the legitimacy of the regime, so they cannot be postponed entirely or indefinitely. Chart 11China Continues To Clamp Down On Air Quality Shifting China's growth model away from primary and secondary industry remains a long-term goal of policymakers. Chart 12 highlights that tertiary industry has already risen non-trivially as a share of GDP. This trend is also clearly visible in the electricity consumption data, which shows that residential and tertiary industry consumption has risen quite materially over the past several years. Chinese policymakers will clearly ease up on the brake over the coming year in terms of deleveraging, but it is far from clear that they will aim for another wave of aggressive private sector debt growth. We highlighted one key reason for this in a recent Special Report: comparing adjusted state-owned enterprise (SOE) return on assets to borrowing costs suggests that the marginal operating gain from debt has become negative for these firms (Chart 13). This implies that further aggressive leveraging of SOEs could push them into a debt trap. In fact, if policymakers do refrain from promoting a major private sector credit expansion over the coming year, that restraint will directly reflect the reform agenda. Chart 12Policymakers Continue To Emphasize A Transition Towards Services Chart 13SOEs Now Appear To Have A Negative Financial Gain From Debt Chart 14 highlights that while anti-corruption cases involving gifts and the improper use of public funds are off of their high from early this year, they remain elevated and are not trending lower. As a final point, Chart 15 shows that our long MSCI China environmental, social, and governance (ESG) leaders / short MSCI China trade has been negatively impacted by the pause in reform as an investment theme. While MSCI's ESG indexes aim to generate low tracking error relative to the underlying equity market of each country, technology companies are typically overrepresented in ESG indexes because of the low emissions nature of their business model. In China's case, we noted above that technology industry groups have fared poorly since mid-June, and panel 2 of Chart 15 shows that the underperformance of Chinese investable technology companies since mid-June lines up with the latest leg of ESG underperformance. Chart 14China's Anti-Corruption Drive Is Still In Effect Chart 15Favor ESG Leaders Again When The Reform Theme Reasserts Itself It remains unclear how much of tech's underperformance has been due to rich multiples versus concerns that the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology transfer and intellectual property theft will negatively impact the market share of China's tech companies (via an opening of the market and a rise in the market share of foreign competitors). But we believe that the latter is a factor, and we recommend closing our long ESG leaders / short benchmark trade until "reform", both environmental and otherwise, reasserts itself as a driving factor for the Chinese equity market. Bottom Line: While it is likely paused rather than stalled, broad "reform" as an investment theme will be less relevant over the coming 6-12 months relative to policymaker efforts to stabilize the economy. We are closing our long ESG leaders / short benchmark trade at a loss of 5.5%. Jonathan LaBerge, CFA, Vice President Special Reports jonathanl@bcaresearch.com 1 Pease see China Investment Strategy Special Report "China: How Stimulating Is The Stimulus?" dated August 8, 2018, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 2 Pease see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report "Investing In The Middle Of A Trade War", dated September 19, 2018, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 3 Pease see China Investment Strategy Special Report "GICS Sector Changes: The Implications For China", dated September 26, 2018, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 4 Pease see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report "Now What?", dated June 27, 2018, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 5 Pease see Commodity & Energy Strategy Weekly Report "Odds Of Oil-Price Spike In 1H19 Rise; 2019 Brent Forecast Lifted $15 To $95/bbl", dated September 20, 2018, available at ces.bcaresearch.com. 6 Pease see China Investment Strategy Special Report "China's Property Market: Where Will It Go From Here?", dated September 13, 2018, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 7 The rapidly escalating trade war between China and the U.S. caused us to recommended putting Chinese stocks on downgrade watch at the end of March, and we recommended that investors cut their exposure to neutral on June 20. Pease see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report "Chinese Stocks: Trade Frictions Make For A Tenuous Overweight", dated March 28, 2018, and China Investment Strategy Special Report "Downgrade Chinese Stocks To Neutral", dated June 20, 2018, both available at cis.bcaresearch.com. Cyclical Investment Stance Equity Sector Recommendations

Neutral As part of this week's Special Report analyzing the rebadging of the S&P communication services index, we initiated coverage on the new S&P interactive media & services sector. Not doing so would leave a significant gap as the new index (comprised almost entirely of Alphabet & Facebook) makes up half of the market cap weight of the renamed GICS1 sector. We have not overcomplicated our thesis on interactive media & services: we expect that as long as everyone who wants a job has a job, consumer confidence will remain at record highs. This should ensure the flow of advertising dollars that dominate the revenues of the constituent firms, meaning profit growth, and hence stock performance, outpaces the broad market. Still, three risks keep us on the fence: a renewed regulatory focus, rapid unpredictable changes in tastes & technology and the threat of an appreciating U.S. dollar that threatens to sap growth in the key foreign segments. Bottom Line: We are initiating coverage with a neutral rating; please see Monday's Special Report for more details. The tickers in this index are BLBG: S5INMS - GOOG, GOOGL, FB, TWTR, TRIP.

Special Report

Highlights Value is the most storied of all the factors discovered by academicians, and some of the most revered investors of all time have been those most closely associated with value investing. Over the nearly 92 years covered by Fama and French's data set, stocks with the highest book-to-price multiples have outperformed the overall market by three percentage points annually, but they have underperformed by two percentage points a year since their pre-financial-crisis peak. Fama and French's top value cohort has spent much of the post-crisis period mired at relative levels it first surpassed in early 2001, leading to whispers that value might be finished. It may take another year or two, but nothing ails value that a good bear market couldn't cure. The most popular value indexes are poor proxies for the value factor identified by Fama and French. We turn to our proprietary Equity Trading Strategy service's model for better insight into the metrics that separate value stocks from the rest of the field. Feature Macro students and investors are captivated by "factors," independent variables that are widely recognized as persistent drivers of equity returns, and BCA researchers are no exception. Although we have little time for the new factor "discoveries" that are accumulating at a rate that might make a bitcoin miner jealous, the established factors - Value, Size, and Momentum - have earned their stripes. We are card-carrying members of Professor Fama and French's fan club, and well-thought-out strategies attempting to harness their insights merit serious consideration. This Special Report updates a Special Report published jointly by our Global ETF Strategy and Equity Trading Strategy (ETS) services in May with insights from a custom value index just created by The Bank Credit Analyst and ETS teams.1 It compares today's popular conceptions of value to the principles of Benjamin Graham, the "father of value investing," and finds that off-the-shelf value indexes fall far short of the value ideal. We seek to answer two questions with far-reaching investment implications: Is value dead? If not, how will investors know when it's about to reclaim its former glory? In our view, value is not dead, it's only sleeping, even if its hibernation is starting to feel like Rip van Winkle's. Although it is not yet time to tilt a portfolio in its direction, the Value factor is alive and well, and simply biding its time until the next bear market and recession. Decomposing value investing's performance across market and policy cycles shows that it edges out the equity universe when policy is easy and bull markets are in force, but crushes it when policy is tight and stocks are in a bear market. The investment strategy conclusion is one with the empirical record: non-dedicated investors should look to value stocks when the weather turns rough. What Is Value? As our ETF and ETS teams lamented in their initial smart-beta ETF selection Special Report,2 the principles established by Benjamin Graham and Fama and French have faded with the passage of time. The essential notion that value is a by-product of temporary dislocations has slipped from popular understanding, making room for a simplistic, one-size-fits-all index-construction method that grants bank stocks lifetime membership. Those who bothered to read Fama and French's paper quickly forgot step one of its methodology, which stated, "We exclude financial firms." Financials' higher debt loads depress their price-to-book multiples relative to their nonfinancial counterparts', making direct comparisons dubious. The result has been to tether off-the-shelf value indexes' relative performance to the relative performance of the Financials sector (Chart 1). Since Tech stocks account for a similarly outsized proportion of the market cap of most growth indexes, value vs. growth boils down to a binary choice between Financials and Tech (Chart 2). Style investing is presumably meant to be something larger than a head-to-head battle between Financials' and Tech's prospective returns. It is certainly a long way away from the margin-of-safety concept that Graham applied to every investment. Chart 1Value Indexes' Permanent Residents Chart 2In A Standard Index, Value Is To Growth ##br##As Financials Are To Tech What's The Big Deal? Shorn of the margin-of-safety concept, value investing ceases to provide investors with downside protection. Regardless of the metric(s) used to measure an investor's margin of safety (Graham preferred a multiple of future earnings, conservatively estimated; Fama and French found that trailing book-to-price in isolation best explained subsequent returns), securities bought with a large one provide investors with a cushion against untoward future developments. That cushion is readily apparent in Fama and French's high book-to-price portfolios' performance relative to low book-to-price portfolios', and to the overall equity market (Chart 3): they outperform in bull markets, albeit at a modest pace, but they blast ahead during bear markets and recessions (Table 1). Long bull markets, like the one that was mainly in force from 1982 to 2000, and the current one, which just established a postwar record of over nine-and-a-half years, are a drag on rolling (Chart 3, middle panel) and cumulative returns (Chart 3, bottom panel). Chart 3Making Hay While The Rain Falls Table 1Value Portfolio Returns, July 1967 - July 2018 By contrast, the S&P 500 Value Index offers very little protection in times of stress, nosing out the broad S&P 500 in the one-seventh of the time a bear market has been in force since its 1975 launch, while lagging the broad index over the other six-sevenths (Table 2). The result is steady underperformance that adds up over time (Chart 4), and mirrors the relative performance of the S&P 500 Financials (Chart 4, bottom panel). Since value investors are conceding performance to growth investors in boom times, they really need to make hay during slumps, which the S&P 500 Value Index has failed to do, outside of the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The empirical record suggests that the main off-the-shelf value index's construction methodology leaves a lot to be desired (Chart 5). Table 2S&P 500 Value Index Returns, ##br##February 1975 - July 2018 Chart 4A Simplistic Proxy ... Chart 5... That Can't Hold A Candle To The Real Factor Building A Better Value Index The standard value indexes have several shortcomings. They are backward-looking, overly reliant on earnings as a cash-flow metric, blind to serial acquirers' accumulation of book-to-market-flattering intangible assets, and oblivious to sector-neutrality's charms. The value metrics in our Equity Trading Strategy (ETS) model correct for all but sector biases. They incorporate forward P/E multiples alongside trailing multiples; they consider cash-flow multiples; and their use of price-to-tangible-book, in place of simple price-to-book, partially corrects for acquirers' cosmetic advantage. Our Bank Credit Analyst colleagues turned to the ETS software to screen for candidates that more fully live up to Graham's value ideal. To combat sector biases, they grouped large- and mid-cap U.S. stocks3 by sector and evaluated their value characteristics only against each other, identifying the top three (value) and bottom three (growth) deciles within individual sector silos. Then and only then did they bring the value and growth pools together into market-wide baskets. Every sector is equally represented in its value and growth indexes, which bring together the best- and worst-value stocks from every sector. The ETS approach, which may do a better job of screening out value traps than simple book-to-price multiples alone, shows promise. The ETS value: growth index has outperformed Fama and French's high-minus-low index by an annualized 4 percentage points over its 22-year life (Chart 6). The ETS index rebalances monthly, making it more costly to track than Fama and French's high-minus-low (HML) index, but does not ride the same Size factor tailwind.4 We estimate that the Size factor contributes more to Fama and French's HML than ignoring commissions contributes to the ETS index. Chart 6Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants When Will Value Regain Its Footing? The Value factor has underperformed the broad market before, but its rolling 10-year returns have never been underwater for so long. Relative to the bottom three deciles of stocks on a book-to-price basis, the top three deciles have spent much of the post-crisis period bumping along a level they first reached in February 2001, when the stock market was in the midst of furiously unwinding the excesses of the dot-com era (Chart 7). Seventeen years of sideways action have emboldened skeptics to suggest that Value might have met its end at the hands of overexposure and increased short-term pressure on professional investors. Chart 7A Historically Long Value Slump Count us among those who believe Value's demise has been greatly exaggerated. We've seen this movie before - the Value factor posts its strongest relative gains during bear markets and/or recessions - and the last 17 years have been market-friendly away from the crisis, when high book-to-price stocks uncharacteristically underperformed. Consistent with its comfort in adverse conditions, Value has performed best when monetary policy settings are restrictive (Table 3). Policy has now been accommodative for a record 10 consecutive years and counting (Chart 8), subjecting the high book-to-price stocks to a persistent relative headwind. Table 3High-Minus-Low* Annualized Returns By Fed Funds Cycle Phase, August 1961-July 2018 Chart 8Easier For Lo-o-o-onger The policy backdrop may provide the surest route back to Value outperformance. Based on the tight-as-a-drum labor market and budding inflation pressures, we expect the FOMC to maintain its 25-basis-points-a-quarter pace throughout 2019, putting the target fed funds rate on a path to cross our estimate of equilibrium sometime around the middle of next year. Tight policy would be conducive for Value outperformance and potentially plant the seeds for a recession and equity bear market at some point in 2020. As our ETF and ETS teams showed in their review of equity factors and the fed funds rate cycle, countercyclical Value naturally diversifies a portfolio with pro-cyclical Size and Momentum exposures,5 suggesting that Value exposure could be a welcome input to a recession portfolio. Investment Implications Prime time for the Value factor still appears to be a year off, but the time for considering new, or increasing existing, exposures is approaching, and another year of Fed hikes will bring it squarely into view. Value investing will never die as long as significant segments of the investing public pursue instant gratification, or are drawn in by the siren song of potentially supercharged growth opportunities.6 The current cycle is simply extended, and just as it remains appropriate to stick with equities overall, it remains appropriate from a factor perspective to de-emphasize Value in the near term. We remain on the style-investing sidelines, waiting for the next policy-cycle phase. Once it arrives, investors would be well-advised to apply the ETS approach to uncovering the best value candidates for an equity portfolio. Doug Peta, Senior Vice President U.S. Investment Strategy dougp@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see the May 16, 2018 Global ETF Strategy/Equity Trading Strategy Special Report, "Smart-Beta ETF Selection Update - Is Value Still Worth It?" available at etf.bcaresearch.com, and the October 2018 Bank Credit Analyst Special Report, "Is It Time To Buy Value Stocks?," available at www.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see the February 15, 2017 Global ETF Strategy Special Report, "Smart-Beta ETF Selection, Part I - Value Funds," available at etf.bcaresearch.com. 3 The ETS model draws its index members from the top three deciles of U.S. stocks by market cap. 4 Fama and French's HML index is equally composed of the top three book-to-price (B/P) deciles less the bottom three B/P deciles of the stocks above the median market cap and the top three B/P deciles less the bottom three B/P deciles of stocks below the median market cap. The ETS index is drawn from the largest three deciles of all stocks by market cap. The net effect is for the HML index to include stocks with much smaller market caps than the ETS index, allowing it to derive an added benefit from the Size factor (smaller stocks outperform larger stocks over time). 5 Please see the May 17, 2017 Global ETF Strategy Special Report, "Equity Factors And The Fed Funds Rate Cycle," available at etf.bcaresearch.com. 6 Please see the June 20, 2018 Global ETF Strategy/Equity Trading Strategy Special Report, "Why Anomalies Persist," available at etf.bcaresearch.com.