Investment Strategy
1 minute read
IN BRIEF
If the second quarter was characterised by Trump, tariffs and ‘liberation’ day, the third quarter was all about the Federal Reserve (the Fed) and the path of global interest rates – back to fundamentals.
Up until the middle of the year, the US economic growth had been remarkably resilient despite restrictive policy rates. However, the August non-farm payroll print was sharply weaker and more than that, previous monthly data was revised down. The Fed has a dual mandate – price stability (inflation around 2%), while at the same time targeting full employment. Inflation continues to run above target at around 3% but it was the payroll number that triggered the Fed to cut rates by 25bps for the first time this year and indicate another two rate cuts by year end. Consequently, the path of interest rate expectations has moved lower:
While on the face of it a slowing jobs market might raise questions over growth and consequently equity markets, the prospect of lower rates triggered a rally in both equity and fixed income markets. Essentially the market is reading this as a pre-emptive rate cutting cycle to stimulate future growth, thereby mitigating recession risk.
One of the reasons we think the market is not pricing a more recessionary type scenario is the secular spending on AI related infrastructure. Q2 earnings reports were not only notable for growth exceeding expectation but also the amounts being committed to capital expenditure to develop AI. If we thought the German fiscal stimulus of c. €500bn was significant, projected spend on AI dwarfs that number.
Our CIO team visited or heard from around 120 companies following Q2 earnings reports and they came away with two high conviction takeaways:
1) AI spend is real and likely to continue for a period of years.
2) Companies aren’t reporting signs of a weakening consumer.
Evidence of the first point was well illustrated at the end of the quarter by Nvidia announcing a $100bn investment in OpenAI to build data centres and other related infrastructure. Market ‘bears’ will point to the exuberance of capex in the ‘.com’ bubble, resulting in huge write-offs. The difference here is that these investments are being funded from hard cash and on proven technology. Time will tell whether companies achieve a positive rate of return or not but in the meantime, it is cash spending that creates jobs and growth. When combined with expansionary fiscal policy (e.g. US tax cuts, German infrastructure bill), it’s understandable that markets are pricing future growth.
In terms of FX and specifically, weakness in the US dollar, this quarter saw more rangebound conditions and that is our view, the correction substantially played out in H1. That said, with US cash rates set to decline and the ECB currently on pause, it could be that we see USD weakness driven by capital flows. But it’s not a one way trade with US growth likely to tick up next year. Diversification is key.
Although we are neutral in our stock/bond mix, we retain a pro-cyclical bias through a 4% overweight to high yield – split equally between Europe and the US. Geographically, we retain a small overweight to the US equity market vs Europe. At the sector level, our overweights are technology, financials and healthcare, while we have underweights in materials and industrials. In absolute terms, tech related companies (c.40%) and financials (c.20%) are the main drivers of equity exposure and we feel both sectors have good earnings outlooks.
Within fixed income, we are underweight Core bonds in favour of high yield and neutral duration at around 6.5 years at the portfolio level. Because high yield is shorter duration, our Core bonds (investment grade and government bonds) have slighter higher duration of around 6.9 years. That means that we are balancing a pro-cyclical overall position with some defence in fixed income should growth disappoint. We retain conviction that in that event, holding duration will protect i.e. negatively correlate with equities. At the sub-sector level, we remain overweight securitised MBS.
For portfolios with hedge funds, we are positioned in line with the strategic allocation and have a slight bias to relative value and global macro.
All index performance information has been obtained from third parties and should not be relied upon as being complete or accurate. They are not investment products available for purchase. Indices are unmanaged and generally do not take into account fees or expenses. Furthermore, while some alternative investment indices ay provide useful indications of the general performance of the alternative investment industry or particular alternative investment strategies, all alternative investment indices are subject to selection, valuation survivorship and entry biases, and lack transparency with respect to their proprietary computations.
MSCI WORLD INDEX: The MSCI World Index is a free-float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure equity market performance in the global developed markets. (Source: MSCI Barra)
MSCI EUROPE INDEX: The MSCI Europe Index captures large and mid cap representation across 15 Developed Markets (DM) countries in Europe*. With 448 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization across the European Developed Markets equity universe. (Source: MSCI Barra)
MSCI JAPAN INDEX: The MSCI Japan Index is designed to measure the performance of the large and mid cap segments of the Japanese market. With 318 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in Japan. (Source: MSCI Barra)
S&P 500 INDEX: The S&P 500 Index is widely regarded as the best single gauge of the U.S. equities market, includes a representative sample of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy. Although the S&P 500 focuses on the large-cap segment of the market, with 75% coverage (based on total stock market capitalization) of U.S. equities, it is also an ideal proxy for the total market. (Source: Standard & Poor’s)
STOXX Europe 600: The STOXX Europe 600 index represents large, mid and small capitalization companies across 17 countries of the European region.
NIKKEI 225: The Nikkei 225 is a price-weighted equity index, which consists of 225 stocks in the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
NASDAQ: The Nasdaq Composite Index is a stock index that conveys the overall performance of all Nasdaq-listed stocks according to market capitalization.
CAC 40: A broad-based index of common stocks composed of 40 of the 100 largest companies listed on the forward segment of the official list of the Paris Bourse.
DAX: The DAX is a German blue chip stock market index that tracks the performance of the 40 largest companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
MSCI EM: The MSCI Emerging Markets Index consists of 23 countries representing 10% of world market capitalization. The Index is available for a number of regions, market segments/sizes and covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each of the 23 countries. (Source: MSCI)
BARCLAYS GLOBAL AGGREGATE BOND INDEX: The Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index is an unmanaged index that is comprised of several other Barclays indexes that measure fixed income performance of regions around the world. (Source: Barclays)
BARCLAYS GLOBAL CORPORATE HIGH YIELD INDEX: The Barclays Global Corporate High Yield Bond Index measures the USD-denominated, high yield, fixed-rate corporate bond market. Securities are classified as high yield if the middle rating of Moody’s, Fitch and S&P is Ba1/BB+/BB+ or below. Bonds from issuers with an emerging markets country of risk, based on Barclays EM country definition, are excluded. (Source: Barclays)
BARCLAYS GLOBAL INVESTMENT GRADE INDEX: The Barclays Global Corporate Bond Index measures the investment grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bond market. It includes USD denominated securities publicly issued by industrial, utility and financial issuers. (Source: Barclays)
HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index: The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index is designed to be representative of the overall composition of the hedge fund universe. It is comprised of all eligible hedge fund strategies; including but not limited to convertible arbitrage, distressed securities, equity hedge, equity market neutral, event driven, macro, merger arbitrage, and relative value arbitrage. The strategies are asset weighted based on the distribution of assets in the hedge fund industry. Index returns are net of fees. Performance is reported on a 180 day lag, so recent performance numbers are flash estimates. (Source: HFR)
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