Investment – Page 2 – Applied Macro

Has the US stock market disconnected from the real economy? Part 1

The first thing is to look at the relationship between corporate revenues and the broader economy and to see if it has altered over time. In the following chart, I look at the ratio of:

Aggregated sales for the S&P 500 (Sales)
Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) from the GDP data

The relationship has not changed in the past 20 years. Revenues of US companies look tied to the spending of the US consumer in exactly the way we would expect. Further, this relationship is why we can look to the performance of the broader economy to predict the overall financial performance of companies.

How about profits/earnings?

The next step is to look at the relationship between corporate sales and corporate profits or earnings. This becomes far murkier, mainly relating to deciding which data you trust on what corporate earnings actually are.

The first issue is to choose which of the many earnings that companies report to use.
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are a uniform set of accounting and reporting standards to which US companies are required to produce accounts complying to.
You may imagine these would be the earnings that people refer to when calculating the PE ratio (price/earnings) for example, but strangely instead the most commonly talked about earnings are where they “correct” the GAAP for temporary “non-recurring” items. Funnily enough this measure, normally called operating earnings (Op earnings) is always higher than GAAP, with this difference growing to over $20 i.e. over 15% of reported earnings. Here I chart the difference:

GAAP would be clearly a better number to use, as it reduces the discretion allowed to companies to massage their numbers to make them look better to investors. The chart above strongly suggests that at least some of the recent exuberance in the growth of profits is pure cheerleading and manipulation of earnings data. I will further strengthen this argument below.

How do corporate profits relate to the real economy?

The big story of the rising stock market of the past few years has been rising earnings, amid a large rise in the profitability is US companies. Here I look at GAAP earnings versus the Sales series from the first chart.

If we ignore the recessions which play havoc with profits, during the previous good years of 2003-2007 profits averaged around 8% of sales. This was also true from 2010 to 2016. But in the past 3 years we have seen a rise to record levels of profitability. Here I’m even using GAAP earnings which are far lower and more conservative than the operating earnings companies prefer to talk about.

Did this really happen?

There is another way to measure corporate profits which is via the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) data, which is the data used in compiliing GDP and looks at the numbers reported by companies in their tax filings. GAAP data has the advantage in that we have it for each company, whilst NIPA data is only reported for the US economy as a whole. The advantage of NIPA data is that it provides much even less discretion to the companies in how they calculate it and so is far less susceptible to manipulation or “optimisation”.

If we redo the previous chart and instead look at the NIPA measure of profits against sales, then the picture of the past decade tells a very different story.

We can see that in good times, profits are in a tight range against sales which makes sense. In recessions (2001 & 2008) profits nearly halved before recovering again. Currently we are observing a drop in profits, which is the usual behaviour before a recession, the opposite to the previous chart which showed an acceleration in GAAP earnings versus sales. The following chart shows it even more clearly.

My real concern with this story of rising corporate profitability is that earnings data reported by companies seems out of line with not only sales but also NIPA data, both of which seem to have much less flexibility in reporting compared to GAAP.

Has this ever happened before?

Yes but it’s a more recent phenomenon. NIPA and GAAP earnings up until the mid-80s had a correlation of 0.9. Since then as GAAP rules have changed, they diverged in the same way in the previous two economic cycles.

The chart above shows a profit cycle which is broadly the same as the economic cycle. In white NIPA profitsover PCE (our GDP proxy as before), in yellow GAAP earnings over PCE.

Profits rise in boom times and do extremely poorly in recessions. The striking difference is that the NIPA earnings are a leading indicator of economic recessions, and GAAP earnings are a lagging indicator. This means clear divergence in the 2 measures cycle peaks, the circles drawn.

In the first green circle, we can see NIPA profits peaking in 1997 whilst GAAP earnings continued to rise until 2000. This was the dot com bubble and we discovered that the euphoria built upon ever rising profits believed to be due to the tech revolution was fundamentally misplaced.

In the second green circle, we see the same thing happening before the Financial crisis. NIPA profits peaked in 2006, but the wonderful results posted by financial firms continued well into 2007, before being exposed as completely fabricated.

Note that these profits reported in 2000 and 2007 were not lies. They were in line with GAAP reporting standards. It is just that late in the cycle, firms get quite good at making sure their earnings numbers keep rising. As I mentioned GAAP reporting leaves a lot more discretion than NIPA.

More recently we saw a small earnings recession in 2014/15 in both the NIPA and GAAP numbers. Since 2016, this is where we have seen the divergence, shown in the red circle. The NIPA data shows a typical late cycle deterioration in profit margins. The GAAP data shows a surge to record levels of profitability and the current set of forecasts expect us to reach even greater heights as early as next year.

Have US companies disconnected from the real economy?

It is clear from NIPA data and sales data that corporations are behaving entirely normally late in the cycle amid falling profit margins. It is clear from all the earnings numbers produced by companies themselves that corporations are still exuberant, having an entirely different relationship with the economy with earnings growing far more rapidly than their sales.

Stock market pricing has risen far more rapidly than the broader economy in the past few years. This seems to fully believe these reported earnings which is why it looks so disconnected from the underlying economy.

Equity Valuation – Part 1 Without COVID-19

To understand the current equity market valuation, a good place to start is to do a quick analysis of what market value looked like at the start of the year. We can then look to separate the impact of COVID on the economy and markets. At the time of writing, the S&P is heading towards 3,000.

PE ratio

A simple and decent method of equity valuation is to look at the PE ratio overtime – price of equities divided by their annual Earnings. For the S&P, it is currently just over 20, which is roughly the middle of the range of the past 5 years. Furthermore, it looks even more reasonable when compared with fixed income where bond yields are close to nothing.

Over the same period the stock market has risen strongly. In the chart below, I show that the value of the S&P has doubled in the last decade, as have quarterly earnings (S&P EPS)

Where does earnings growth come from?

The answer is of course that companies are part of the economy and as the economy grows then corporate earnings also grow. In the chart below, we see uninterrupted US GDP growth for the past 10 years and also a rising S&P based upon growing earnings.

This must all be consistent then?

This simple look at equities implies that the rapid rise in equities over the past decade has been fully justified by the fundamentals in the economy.

But I played a little trick in the charts above.
While the stock market, GDP and corporate earnings have all gone up over the past 10 years they have not gone up by the same amount.

Nominal GDP has risen by 50%
Corporate earnings have doubled
The US stock market has tripled

The part I want to look at more closely is the difference between GDP growth and the far more rapid growth in corporate earnings.

Any Reasons to be cautious?

It is remarkable to have such a large rise in earnings when compared to the overall economy and one would expect to see profits as a share of GDP to have risen significantly over the same period. With decent overall growth, then you might expect growth in profits to be better, and to offset this the share of the economy going to workers would be reduced. This would fit the idea that while growth has been good, more of the benefits go to the capital and capital owners and less to workers; in this recovery a lack of real wage growth is often cited as a concern in the face of rising equity prices.

When I look at the data however, it does not fit this intuition. This is a chart of corporate profits as a share of GDP over the past 60 years.

We can see it strongly mean-reverting and so the recent pattern is exactly what we would expect to see. In a recession wages are sticky and do not readily fall; it is companies that have profitability issues. We all know that companies go bust in recessions and in 2001 profits fell to 7% of GDP. In the early stages of a recovery, it is profits which rebound the fastest, wages remain subdued as there is still high unemployment so the gains from GDP growth go to businesses, and by 2014 profits as a share of GDP had nearly doubled to 12%. But later in the cycle this reverses, and profit margins are squeezed, which they have been for the past 5 years.

This does not make sense!

I have just told you two contradictory stories. One is that corporate earnings have been rising rapidly over the past few years, far faster than GDP growth. The other is that profits as a share of GDP have been falling as we would expect late in the economic cycle.

The reason I can tell you two completely different stories is that I have two different data sources. The first is the earnings (S&P EPS) as they are reported by companies. The second is profits as they are recorded in the income method GDP data – known as the NIPA data (National Income and Product Accounts).

These two ways of measuring earnings are not exactly the same. For example, the S+P is only 500 companies whereas NIPA represents the entire US corporate sector. There are also differences in accounting and tax. But logically they are highly similar, and it is no surprise that historically they track very well. Here is a chart from the late 80s until 2014 showing the rise in earnings (EPS) as measured by companies and as measured by the National Accounts. We can see that in the long run, they track pretty well but there are some periods of divergence for instance around the time of the dot com boom in the late 90s.

If I draw the more recent history, we can again see this divergence. The reported earnings have been rising rapidly (white line) while the NIPA measure of profits has been stagnating (orange line).

The relationship is easier to see if we take them as a ratio. In the chart below we see a large spike around the Dot Com bubble (EPS growing more than NIPA), a large spike down during the Great Recession (the opposite) and another large spike higher recently.

These differences are so large that they require an explanation.

Dot Com spike

A bubble emerged in the late 90s with very high PE ratios i.e. companies were expensive compared to earnings. In addition, these reported earnings were inflated; a famous example you may recall was Enron who were highly “creative” with how they recorded and reported their earnings. When the bubble bursts and we move into recession then these accounting methods are not sustainable, and we see the rapid fall in reported earnings and the ratio of reported earnings to NIPA data renormalizes.

There is a danger in that earnings are presented to us by corporates in the most flattering version they can create. In a bull market, there are opportunities to keep presenting this managed version, perhaps similar to how people curate their Instagram feed. Through heavy use of filters and selective framing, someone might look as though they are very attractive with an opulent lifestyle. The recession is the equivalent of when you meet them in person and realise that the reality is not exactly what was promised.

Great Recession

This rapid fall in reported earnings is easily explained as a result of huge write-downs taken by financial firms. This is a good example of an item that is recorded by companies as a change in earning, but not included in GDP data. Once the write-downs have finished, the ratio between reported earnings and NIPA profits renormalizes.

Now

I have been searching for a good explanation of this divergence and am yet to find one. One plausible idea is stock buybacks, but this is not true as they are adjusted for in the earnings data. Other sources of divergence such as tax are real but do not come close to explaining the large difference.

Could the NIPA data be wrong?
This is data that will get revised, but it would take something extraordinary for GDP revisions to change corporate profits by the 40% divergence we have seen to EPS

Could it be financial accounting manipulation?
Some argue the rules are so much stricter now, so it is not possible. Surely what we learned from the last crisis is that Rating Agencies having strict rules on how to make a security AAA that enabled smart bankers to arbitrage those rules. I do not believe we could ever have rules so strict that smart bankers cannot find ways to optimise them. This does not mean that people must be lying or breaking the law. Bear in mind virtually everything that Enron did to inflate their earnings was legal.

Could it be offshoring profits?
There could be something here and it is a very murky and complex area. We know that the large tech companies have found ways to limit their onshore earnings, keeping profits in countries where they have to pay no tax but this is hardly a new phenomenon. It is something I will be looking into as an explanation.

Could it just not be a problem?
Maybe this is the first time we have ever seen a large, rapid, permanent shift in the relationship between reported earnings and NIPA data. Maybe. Most people in effect seem to be assuming this and financial markets are not at all concerned.

What if the NIPA data is right?

If the NIPA data is correct, then the PE ratio is currently far higher than 20. In the previous two cycles it was reported earnings that correct, not the NIPA data, and the timing of the correction is during a recession. As Warren Buffet said “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out”.

Summary

My view of value before COVID was that it was reasonable to belong to equity markets early in 2020. I was aware of the NIPA data divergence as an issue, but it has been an issue for a long time and it has not been a market driver. The trend towards higher earnings and higher equity prices had been very strong and I believed that it would take an event or catalyst to reverse it. If we are heading into a significant recession, then this may be the time we understand if the relationship between reported earnings and GDP profits will reconnect.

The Denial Index

The standard index and best way of measuring the volatility in the US stock market is the VIX. (it’s an index of average implied volatility of listed options on the S&P of about 30 days expiry)

It is also known at the “Fear Index”.
But I think it should better be termed the “Denial Index”

When does VIX spike?

Volatility rises on negative shocks when stock markets drop rapidly. This can be attributed to fear. When the fear subsides, the stock market recovers, and the volatility drops.

This is where the index gets its name.

There are plenty of examples, take the equity market drop during 2015

Or the really huge drop during the financial crisis of 2008

The most recent sell-off also looks the same
i.e. the stock market drops and volatility rises.
So we can expect that volatility will drop again, when the market recovers.

If we look more closely at the examples, what we are really seeing is when there is a sharp drop in share prices, people do not believe it will last. They do not accept that the new lower price is the correct one, and think that a rapid bounce back is likely. What they are afraid of is that in the short term, the market will carry on going lower, but they do not expect that to last either.

In a real economic crisis, the fall in stock prices is for good reason and is here to stay. Once the market reaches this level of acceptance, then we can have stock prices stay low, but volatility falls back to previous lower levels. This is exactly what we saw in 2008/09.

If this crisis does turn out to be long lasting and real, as I currently expect, then we are still only in Stage 2 i.e. Awareness grows. Faith policy makers remains strong, even though the policy makers do not yet understand they are not in control. Markets believe it will be ok – e.g. positive reaction to Bear Sterns bail out. (1^st half of 2008)

The positive market reaction to the US stimulus package and Trump suggesting that the US be reopened is a sign that the market’s faith in policy makers remains strong. The “Denial Index” still suggests that we expect these lower prices not to last and that a sustained recovery is imminent. We will all find out if this faith is justified.

Update on market views

USD

On May 30th I wrote a post explaining why I was bearish the USD (Framework for FX valuation – where is the USD heading?). Value seemed to me to be the most important driver and so I had paired a short USD view against a basket of currencies which I considered the most undervalued i.e. CAD, AUD, EUR, NOK and SEK.

This has been working very well so far.

However currently I do not think the USD has moved enough to warrant a reduction in my conviction level, as the long-term potential for the move is still far greater.

GBP

I have been very bearish on sterling for a long time. I may write a post explaining the key reasons in more detail, but essentially I see GBP as highly vulnerable for many fundamental reasons and it is heading towards a large negative trade shock with Brexit. This results in a heightened potential for a calamitous drop.

My 5th May post (Who loses more from Brexit? The UK or EU?) is where I laid out why the UK has far more to lose then the EU from Brexit. Since then sterling has performed very poorly vs. my basket of undervalued currencies (AUD, EUR, CAD, NOK and SEK.)

I retain my bearish view of the currency but am aware that it is hard to justify looking solely at historic value. My view for continued weakness rests on my view that Brexit will happen and very bad economic consequences will follow.

If there is a political earthquake leading to a U-turn, or perhaps the UK ends up in some permanent transition limbo within the single market, then I would revisit my view.

Equities

In early June I laid out why I was bearish on US equities. Since then they have barely moved. My views have not really changed but I intend to update my analysis given some interesting data releases since then. Most importantly wage growth has continued to disappoint which means that there remains an opportunity for corporate earnings to keep rising, despite lacklustre GDP growth.

Fixed Income

I looked at the front end of US fixed income on May 16th and noted that the continued slow drift lower in rates had been a good trade and that it could be about to change.

There has been no sign of a change at all in the market i.e. a very slow move to lower rates continues. This is not a trade I have any appetite to hold either side of.

The story is similar in the long end with little movement in any direction.

With mediocre growth and no acceleration in wage growth, there is no catalyst but my concerns with overall valuation mean I have no desire to own any fixed income at these levels.