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[00:00:00.14] This session is closed to the press. Welcome to the JP Morgan webcast. This is intended for informational purposes only. Opinions expressed herein are those of the speakers and may differ from those of other JP Morgan employees and affiliates. Historical information and outlooks are not guarantees of future results.
[00:00:20.52] Any views and strategies described may not be appropriate for all participants and should not be intended as personal, investment, financial, or other advice. As a reminder, investment products are not FDIC insured, do not have bank guarantee, and they may lose value. The webcast may now begin.
[00:00:38.94] [UPBEAT MUSIC]
[00:00:55.61] Hello, and welcome to our afternoon session to talk about markets, ideas, insights, but primarily, tariffs. And what we want to do is talk a little bit about what's already on the market. The market is clearly pricing in risk and uncertainty, and everyone is trying to figure out whether that risk and uncertainty is already priced in or if it means there's more downside ahead.
[00:01:17.35] And in order to determine all that, we're going to have to look through the numbers, try to figure out whether there's inflation, rate cuts, higher or lower tariffs, which is always a challenge in an uncertain market, recalibrate earnings forecasts and multiples, and think through where all the financial instruments are going, so we can make some decisions about portfolios and forecasts.
[00:01:37.60] You can imagine, in today's world, it is getting increasingly hard to forecast where markets are going, where they may end up, because the information necessary to make those decisions seems to be changing daily. And the more uncertainty that exists in markets, the more return markets command or ask for. And so as this market seeks a level where the return for investing in it compensates you for the risk, we all watch and ask the same question.
[00:02:02.72] So today, we're going to talk to both our US equity strategy, Abby Yoder, and to our head of portfolio strategies, Stephen Parker. And I think the whole idea here is to try to determine what we should do today or what we should do now. Are there ideas that stand out to us? Are there estimates we can rely on? And are there levels that we would get invested?
[00:02:26.27] And so with that, we're going to start with the biggest topic, which, of course, is the tariffs. They've been moving. As we know, on April 2, there was a significant amount of tariff activity from the administration, and the street rushed to try to price that into estimates and understand and calibrate. There was a change in that or a pause in that, as of yesterday, where the markets, again, rushed to do that. There was some inflation data this morning.
[00:02:54.41] So we want to talk about what was announced back on April 2. Where do we think we are now, given the announcement yesterday? And then we're going to let that flow through our estimates for financial instruments and markets, to see where that puts us.
[00:03:07.35] So, Steve, I'm going to start with you. And you can see this chart shows a history of effective tariff rates in America. And it talks about where we were last week and yesterday. So help me understand this.
[00:03:20.67] Yeah Thanks, Dave. What this chart shows is the effective tariff rate that the US has on the rest of the world. And what you can see, going back over most of the last century, is that this number has been generally moving in a downward pattern in a world of increasing globalization. Earlier this year, that trend began to reverse, starting with the 20% tariff on China, 25% on Mexico and Canada.
[00:03:48.99] You can see that the lower dot indicates that the effective tariff rate essentially went from something like 2.5% up to 5%. This started to make markets a bit nervous, but things really accelerated last week, on Liberation Day. The resulting tariffs, the announcement of a 10% blanket tariff, as well as country-specific reciprocal tariffs ended up coming in above the high end of the most bearish expectations as it relates to trade policy. That's that upper dot, bringing the 5% up to 25% and causing a two-day sell-off in markets that was really only rivaled during Black Monday, the global financial crisis, and COVID.
[00:04:38.98] Yesterday, we got an announcement that we're taking a pause. And some of those tariffs, the country-specific reciprocal tariffs outside of China, would be put on hold for 90 days, allowing us time to negotiate. Markets took this as a big positive. They took it as a sign that the worst case scenario around trade and, as an extension, growth would not play out. Recession risks seem to move lower. And most importantly, the change in tariffs allowed US manufacturers to think about how they could reorient supply chains. And as a result, you see the dot here that's a little bit lower. This reflects street expectations of what the effective tariff rate will look like in a world where you don't have those reciprocal tariffs globally.
[00:05:35.16] And even though China, as our largest trading partner, saw an increase in tariffs, there's an idea that we can reorient these supply chains. And that, ultimately, will bring us to something more manageable, so something in the 15% to 20% range.
[00:05:52.20] So let's talk about that for a second, because I think that's important. So we had this very large tariff hurdle that would affect US manufacturing, maybe for the positive, US imports, to the negative, and had implications for the dollar. And equity markets immediately priced that in by going lower. You highlighted that.
[00:06:10.85] During the pause, I think one of the reasons-- and you might forecast or speculate that the sell off today is a little bit driven by the recognition that there still is a hurdle. In fact, because China is our largest trading partner, if you put a 125% tariff on it, you don't see that orange dot, really, move down at all, if you don't assume that some of the companies move their supply chain out of China.
[00:06:34.59] And so the green dot assumes some degree of substitution in the supply chain out of China to other countries. Or, of course, you could also assume that those tariffs don't stick. But it's still a very high number versus history. So before we move to Abby to talk about the implications for equity earnings, is your best case-- maybe not best case scenario. Is your forecast that we end up where that green is, or do you think that we move higher or lower?
[00:07:05.89] No. We think that our base case is around where that green dot is. And we have to acknowledge, as you've said, that would still reflect the biggest move higher in tariffs in the last century. We think that that will have an impact on growth, and we think that our estimates coming into the year have to be cut. So at the beginning of the year, we were thinking something like 2% GDP growth. Today, we're around half of that. But the good news is, we think that it takes the tail risk around recession off the table.
[00:07:34.57] So there are two other things happening before we get to equities, which we should cover, because they seem to be, actually, quite dominant in client conversations today. One of them is what's happening in the bond market. The bond market, the equity market, and the US dollar rarely sell off together, but that has been happening for the last two days. It didn't happen after the pause yesterday, but it's happening again today. And so that has caused some to wonder whether or not there is a shift in interest in investing in US assets.
[00:08:05.32] And so the bond market might be selling off as people reduce their allocation to US bonds. The dollar would follow suit. So do either of those concern you? Because they do seem to be super topical.
[00:08:17.29] Yeah. So I think, in fact, a lot of people are speculating that the move in the bond market, rather than the move in the equity market, was what may have pushed us to step back around the tariffs in the announcement yesterday. I think, when you look at the bond market at first, the initial sell off that started at the end of last week, I think, was more fundamental in nature.
[00:08:38.02] It was related to this idea that in a world of higher tariffs, you're talking about higher inflation, slower growth, a stagflationary environment. And Fed chair Powell, in fact, last week, came out and said that with economic data still fairly strong and with uncertainty around inflation, don't look for the Fed to step in immediately to give a little bit of that policy support. I think that's what caused the initial sell off in the bond market.
[00:09:05.15] Now, I think what we're seeing more recently, as the bond market sells off with the stock market and with the dollar, is that question around the value of US assets. We're in a world where investors are very long US and dollar-based assets. And as policy certainty, uncertainty increases and remains high, the premium that you need to pay for that goes up. And so I think what we're seeing now is a little bit of a question around that uncertainty. We don't think that it is destabilizing. We don't see this as a big issue. We think that this will ultimately settle down, but it's something that we have to keep an eye on.
[00:09:45.98] It does, of course, remind us all that we tend to, as US-based investors, if we are-- and even many of the non-US-based investors, given the growth of the US equity market over the last 10 to 20 years, are significantly invested in US dollar assets. And this just reminds us that if the dollar is set to sell off-- and we do forecast it continuing to decline over the next few years-- that is a tailwind for non-dollar assets and reminds us all that a diversified approach to geographical equity investing and asset investing is a smart way to think about it.
[00:10:18.20] We're going to get to some very specific things at the end of this call that we think you can do, given the current market environment. But let's get to the elephant in the room, which is equities. And so, Abby, you are charged with trying to figure out, what are-- everyone wants to know, how close are we to the bottom? Is this the bottom? Was yesterday the bottom? And now, today, the market sells off. So then we say, well, that wasn't the bottom, maybe.
[00:10:41.17] So you have to figure out what our base case is. You have to calibrate everything we just said. Then, because everyone asks you where the bottom may be, you have to then calibrate and determine what might be a bear case and what you've done. And maybe as a sign of the times, no one wants to talk about the bull case right now.
[00:10:57.42] No.
[00:10:57.63] No. As a matter of fact, if the base case happens, they'll be totally happy. You can see this chart is moving daily. As a matter of fact, if it was being plotted real time, that diamond would be even lower. So help me understand what our base case is and what it anticipates.
[00:11:13.47] And then, when you do run the full tariffs through and you do think about the full implementation or implications of the tariffs, where that takes us-- so we can try to say, all right. As we get closer to that level, maybe I feel better.
[00:11:28.16] So I think contextualizing, coming into the year, looking at this chart, we're very, very close to our base case, looking back, in January, at this chart. And that really speaks to the US exceptionalism trade that was very consensus, coming into this year. And we were at 6,400 when we came into this year. And the talk was all about, what are the right-tail risks? Like, what could go wrong? Everything's going to go right. To your point, we were talking more about the bull case at that point.
[00:12:00.83] And then what started swiftly changing post-inauguration day was, left-tail risks were starting to be priced in. There was more discussion around what was going to be happening with tariffs. And we started getting some soft economic data and comments from companies that were more on the confidence standpoint. Like, there wasn't anything real necessarily happening with their businesses, but they're like, this could cause a lot of disruption, and this is making us a little bit uncertain.
[00:12:26.46] So with our March update, in terms of our outlook, we took down our base case to 6,200. And what we've done now, given that post-liberation day, is thought of as a wider range in terms of our base case. Typically, we have 100-point range, a 6,150 to 6,250. That's now 5,700 to 6,200, so a bigger, wider range. And that's really predicated on different valuations and different earnings that we think could come to fruition and, again, avoiding that recessionary scenario that is not our base case.
[00:13:00.45] So that range of outcomes has widened and that range and that earnings growth-- we were talking about this-- is somewhere between, on the lower end of that range, 2%, so basically flat, relative to last year, to 9% on the upper end. And the valuation ranges are something like 19 to 22 times.
[00:13:19.75] So Stephen talked, on the previous slide, about a range of tariffs from what first came out at the lower end of that chart to the April 2 Liberation Day, and then some sort of estimate in the middle that had some expectation of either substitution in China and supply chain or a reduction in the 125% tariff.
[00:13:47.97] We're going to have an earnings growth of 2% to 9%. I guess it's encouraging. It's still going to have earnings growth. You still think the market can withstand a 2021 multiple?
[00:13:56.91] Yeah, it can definitely go there, I mean, because you're not going to be putting trough valuations on trough earnings. So that 21 multiple would be when we think we're closer to the bottom of that earnings trough, when we see the downgrades in terms of the company--
[00:14:10.03] So on the base case, we're talking 2% to 9% growth. And that is inclusive of the tariffs?
[00:14:15.57] Mm-hmm.
[00:14:16.05] And now, we say, all right, but what if the tariffs don't get better? What if the 90-day pause doesn't lead to a settling with other countries? And what if we're back to Liberation Day? That is your bear case.
[00:14:27.28] That's the bear case.
[00:14:28.39] Which is where you take earnings to minus-6, I think, for this year?
[00:14:32.19] Yeah. So essentially no earnings growth for two years.
[00:14:35.20] And you take that, and you think that's trough, so you put a slightly higher multiple on that, because you don't normally get trough multiples on trough earnings, which you just said. And that takes us down to 4,500. So if you're in that camp, you would not want to start buying until we got closer to 4,500?
[00:14:49.63] Yeah. I mean, depending on the day, we're between, right now, I think, 10% to 12% from that level. And the way we're thinking about that level is, there's a lot of numbers that are thrown out around recessions and averages. We like to break down recessionary scenarios into event driven, cyclical and structural. This is viewed as more event driven. It's a decision being made that can be, as we learned yesterday, reversed.
[00:15:16.75] And so typically what you see, in those event-driven recessions, is something like a 25% to 30% decline, from peak to trough. And that's what is represented in that 4,500 level that we have, in terms of a recession.
[00:15:29.33] Got it. And most importantly, there's, at least, what upside to our base case now? 10%?
[00:15:35.29] 10% to 20%, from where we are today.
[00:15:37.25] From where we are now.
[00:15:37.85] 5,200.
[00:15:38.63] So now, you've got to figure 10% downside for 10% to 20% upside. This is why your job is so hard right now.
[00:15:44.87] Yeah.
[00:15:46.10] Now, a lot of that is predicated upon some amelioration of the tariffs that are currently announced, because the tariff on China is so large, as a trading partner. And so now, the chatter that I've heard all morning is, how quickly can the US companies, if necessary, move their supply chains out of China? So is there a precedent for that? How do you think about that?
[00:16:08.58] Yeah. So there seems to be a coalescing around, we are going to go after China, which rhymes with what was happening in 2018. That was really a concentration around what was happening in China. And that was escalated over the past seven years. That really hasn't changed.
[00:16:25.89] And so what has happened over the past seven years is, companies have already been rejiggering their supply chains to Mexico, Vietnam. They've been really reorienting-- India-- within these Asian countries to really offset that impact that we were already getting in 2018, which means there's already an existing subset of manufacturing capabilities.
[00:16:46.95] Can they withstand and take on everything coming from China? Probably not. And so that might likely mean that there's movement elsewhere, but there is already infrastructure in the ground that can support some of this movement. In the near term, that could help with companies as they think about their margins and on-the-go, forward, in terms of earnings.
[00:17:05.52] There's going to be some level of manufacturing in China that's probably immovable. But I do think that our forecast, our base-case forecast, does anticipate that there will there would be, if necessary, significant movement of supply chains that are relatively manageable around places to escape the highest tariffs.
[00:17:23.82] Yes. And you've already heard a couple of companies talking about how they're moving manufacturing to India, for example, and negotiating with suppliers, too, to, say, maybe bring down price from their suppliers in these Asian countries. So there's negotiating at the policy level, but there's also at the company level, ongoing, as well.
[00:17:42.36] So this has been a lot of macro talk. And now, I want to talk a little bit about, what are things we think you could do? What are things from the safest ways to invest to some of the more, I think the world's going to bounce ways to invest? And so let's talk about that on the next slide.
[00:17:59.68] And I know, Steve, we're going to start with if you're more bearish and then end with if you're more bullish. We'll call our base case bullish at this point. I didn't ask you this before. What do you think would be the best and most bullish headline you could see here? Is it the Fed cuts? Is it low inflation? Is it something on tariffs? Is it a settlement with Europe on something? What would it be?
[00:18:26.30] I think the most bullish thing for markets right now would likely be related to tariffs. I think it would be some sort of an announcement of an actual deal with one of our larger trade partners. I think markets would view that very positively and extrapolate that out to a willingness to negotiate more broadly. I would imagine that something with China, which is, perhaps, the biggest potential market mover, is probably further down the road. But even signs of incremental progress, I think, would get a very positive response from markets.
[00:18:58.86] I think we all concur. That's probably what we would like to see is progress being made within the 90-day-pause window. And if some of those deals are reached, it would probably, just like yesterday, have an impact, although probably not to that magnitude.
[00:19:12.94] So let's start on the left of this. So we have a lot of clients who are concerned. They're worried that this does continue, if not the tariff dialogue, the malaise in the markets. So let's start there, which is probably the least interesting, and then move through to the right, where it starts to get more interesting, depending on your perspective.
[00:19:33.60] I think the most natural tendency in a time like this, when you're seeing 9.5% up days and 5% or 6% down days, is to do nothing. It's very easy to become paralyzed when you see volatility like what we're experiencing right now. But as you said, we think there are opportunities for clients, regardless of where you fall in terms of your forward-looking view of the world.
[00:19:57.06] For clients who are more bearish, who think that this trade war is likely to lead more towards that bear-case scenario, where recession is in the cards, where there's downside in equity markets, they're probably sitting on cash right now. They're probably feeling pretty good about that. And that's obviously helped to insulate the drawdowns. But we actually think that there are areas where you can get more bang for the buck in terms of providing protection and diversification in your portfolio.
[00:20:24.15] So for those clients who are sitting on a lot of cash, looking at diversifiers like gold, that's been one of the big themes from our outlook coming into this year as an important diversifier in portfolios. But also, core fixed income has played a very good role in terms of adding diversification for taxable clients. The muni market, right now, is looking particularly attractive. There's some technical considerations around the amount of supply coming to the market that's making munis look very attractive.
[00:20:54.95] And we think, ultimately, particularly if you think that recession scenario is in the cards, core fixed income is going to play a really important role. And by the way, in that scenario, you're probably looking at Fed cuts, which means that the future return on your cash is going to come down.
[00:21:09.17] So incumbent in that view is a view that if we do get the bear-case scenario, that rates are lower, not higher in a year. There are those who think that we get the bear-case scenario with higher rates. We're not in that camp.
[00:21:20.96] We're not in that camp.
[00:21:21.62] Otherwise, we would just say, stay cash. But if you're worried about a recession, you go to the tried and true playbook, which is, you own bonds, and you hope to see lower yields. So you get the yield plus the capital appreciation.
[00:21:33.86] Correct.
[00:21:34.64] Great. Now, we're in the middle bucket, which is-- I don't know. It's volatile. It may work out. It may not. I don't know that I want to take a lot of directional risk, but I do want to return more than cash. Walk me through it.
[00:21:46.30] So I think there are a couple of different strategies that you can take here. The first one that I think is just core to our strategic way of managing portfolios is to, again, consider global diversification. It's been really easy to own and lean into US assets and US equities, which have outperformed. But this year has demonstrated the value of global diversification.
[00:22:08.19] Some of the trends that we're seeing, whether it's increasingly shareholder friendly activity out of Japan, whether it's a ramp up in fiscal spending out of Europe-- and by the way, those markets are trading at meaningful discounts to their US counterparts.
[00:22:23.78] And have 3% dividend yields.
[00:22:25.46] And have 3% dividend yields.
[00:22:26.73] And so the dollar declining and providing a tailwind to earnings and potential appreciation is most manifest of those. If you're going to give a geography, you're going to say--
[00:22:36.56] Japan is probably the top pick. But Europe is also an important diversifier. So that's number one. Number two, if you want to be a little bit more opportunistic-- you talked about that scenario where there's 10% downside to our bear case, 10% to 20% upside. Using structured notes, where, essentially, you can take advantage of volatility on the market and use options to reconstruct the risk and return profile of the equity market, you can give yourself downside protection that can protect you to the more bear-case levels. You can give yourself upside potential or income that matches our base case. That's a really compelling way to take that first step out of cash or to give yourself a little bit more comfort in taking that equity exposure.
[00:23:19.91] And then, within your equities, you can also think about leaning into quality, leaning into income, things that will add a little bit more of a buffer amidst the volatility. And then, finally, hedge fund strategies, particularly those that are more uncorrelated in nature, are going to give you that diversification with a little bit of market exposure.
[00:23:37.38] We've seen a lot of interest resurrected around the hedge funds and structures over the market volatility, for sure. And of course, through all of these runs, the concept of planning throughout your investment portfolio-- when markets go up, many of our clients engage in philanthropy. They gift away their low-basis stock.
[00:23:54.76] And now, when the market sell off, a lot of our clients engage in trying to find the right assets to fund grants so that they can hopefully find ways to move money out of their state. So when market volatility arrives, an either upside or downside, we're always engaging with our clients about how that fits in with your plans, so that you can think through multigenerational wealth.
[00:24:18.88] Let's get to the bear case, which is going to feel bullish today. You're going to help me understand, if I'm willing to put money to work here, to potentially capture the upside-- because we might say, in every pullback in our lives, markets ultimately went back to make new highs. And so if markets go back to make new highs, that means there's appreciation. And we're talking about the time for it to do that, in which case, a lot of clients are saying, I'm willing to make that bet. I'm either under-invested or I'm optimistic. What would you tell me to do?
[00:24:47.60] So thinking about this 10% to 20% upside in the drawdown that we've seen year to date, the way that we're thinking about it is, there are some companies that have-- because you see correlations, and companies tend to move together when you're in these very volatile times. And so there are some companies that are just selling off because the market is selling off, not because anything, necessarily, fundamentally, is wrong with those companies when we're outside of a recession, which is our base case.
[00:25:15.02] So in terms of thinking about the equity market and two areas that we think are more opportunistic because, again, they're a little bit more insulated, is going to be on the software side, which are trading at very attractive valuations today.
[00:25:27.98] I want to go to that in a second. Clearly, I mean, people are dying to buy tech and are scared of tech. And so we're trying to pick a part of tech, where we think there's some more visibility and protection.
[00:25:42.16] Less tariff exposure.
[00:25:43.90] Got it. And so let's look on the left. That's software.
[00:25:46.48] So that's software. And also, they're not necessarily exposed to consumer spend. And if you're thinking about AI spend, which we firmly believe on-- we actually had a couple of companies reaffirm their spend, in terms of AI, over the past couple of days, amidst all of this. Like, that's going to be a prioritization for enterprises, in terms of their spend.
[00:26:04.49] And there have been several clients who have wanted to get in on this trade over the past couple of years, but it's been expensive. And so now, this is just a very compelling entry opportunity, in terms of software. And then the other one is banks. We had been bullish on banks, starting in October or November of last year. They took off in terms of the animal spirits trade that went on through the end of last year and into the beginning of this year but have since sold off because there was a lot of ownership there.
[00:26:34.43] But we're all focused on some growth negative policies, in terms of tariffs right now. But there's also this deregulatory agenda that's going on in the background as well. And if we do move forward without the implementation of Basel III, that means $200 billion in excess capital that is held amongst the banks that could be, one, beneficial for the economy and, two, beneficial for their businesses.
[00:27:00.92] So we've got one a little bit lower beta, which is banks. We've got one little higher beta, which is software. And then we have international investments. Steve highlighted Japan, but Europe as well.
[00:27:10.37] And so I want to end going back to this framework, which is simply showing the market and a range of outcomes, trying to calibrate between them. You could probably all put your probabilities. Our bear case probability is 25% or so. Bear case, 25%. So 75%, not that, which means there's a range of these investments that you can engage in.
[00:27:35.80] Steve, one last question before we go. This morning, I believe the budget passed. Any implications? Like, do you worry about our deficit at all? I know that may also come into play. Or do you feel like we're OK, that these other issues are far more important to the market right now?
[00:27:52.26] Yeah. I mean, look, the reality is that the concerns about the budget have been in play for years, if not decades. Will it become an issue at some point? Certainly, it could. Do we know when that's going to be? We don't. And we don't want to manage portfolios around tail risks.
[00:28:09.21] I think, in the near term it's going to be the focus on growth, which is going to be more at the forefront. Because the reality is, if we can get policy to a place where it's more supportive of growth, if we can avoid the recessionary scenario and start growing again, that's going to be positive for budgets. It's going to be positive for our fiscal deficit. And that's what I think markets are going to be more focused on in the near term.
[00:28:30.37] Got it. Well, we thank you all. We promised it would be 30 minutes or less. We've achieved our goal with a minute to spare. Thank you all so much for being part of this call today. We hope we won't have to do any more of these and the volatility will subside and that our base case will become prevailing consensus. But if not, we will be back and talk about different ideas and different interpretations, different ideas, and different insights. So thank you all for being part of it. Have a wonderful day.
[00:28:56.63] Thank you for joining us. Prior to making financial or investment decisions, you should speak with a qualified professional in your JP Morgan team. This concludes today's webcast. You may now disconnect.
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Text: Ideas and Insights. A video begins with an opening slide reading, J.P. Morgan Private Bank. The Tariff Tantrum.: What you Need to Know. Please read aIl important information at the end of this presentation. INVESTMENT AND INSURANCE PRODUCTS: NOT FDIC INSURED. NOT INSURED BY ANY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCY. NO BANK GUARANTEE. MAY LOSE VALUE. Text below the first speaker reads: David Frame, J P Morgan CEO. U.S. PRIVATE BANK
(SPEECH)
Hello, and welcome to our afternoon session to talk about markets, ideas, insights, but primarily, tariffs. And what we want to do is talk a little bit about what's already on the market. The market is clearly pricing in risk and uncertainty, and everyone is trying to figure out whether that risk and uncertainty is already priced in or if it means there's more downside ahead.
And in order to determine all that, we're going to have to look through the numbers, try to figure out whether there's inflation, rate cuts, higher or lower tariffs, which is always a challenge in an uncertain market, recalibrate earnings forecasts and multiples, and think through where all the financial instruments are going, so we can make some decisions about portfolios and forecasts.
You can imagine, in today's world, it is getting increasingly hard to forecast where markets are going, where they may end up, because the information necessary to make those decisions seems to be changing daily. And the more uncertainty that exists in markets, the more return markets command or ask for. And so as this market seeks a level where the return for investing in it compensates you for the risk, we all watch and ask the same question.
So today, we're going to talk to both our US equity strategy, Abby Yoder, and to our head of portfolio strategies, Stephen Parker. And I think the whole idea here is to try to determine what we should do today or what we should do now. Are there ideas that stand out to us? Are there estimates we can rely on? And are there levels that we would get invested?
And so with that, we're going to start with the biggest topic, which, of course, is the tariffs.
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A slide to the right of the speakers is titled: Setting the scene: Even after the delay, tariffs set to slow U.S. growth. U S effective tariff rates are still highest they have been since the Great Depression. The slide contains a chart titled Expected Tariff Rate Post April 9th. J P M estimates for potential U.S. effective tariff rate, %. The y axis of the chart goes in 5% increments from 0% to 30%. The x axis goes from 1900 to 2025. The line on the chart showing tariff rate fluctuates roughly between 25 to 30% from 1900 until a sharp drop-off to almost 5% just before 1925. The line rises again after 1925 to 20% and then sharply goes down to about 5% by 1950, and then fluctuates around and under 5% until 2025. In 2025, there is a blue dot at the 5% mark over the line that reads 20% on China, 25% on Mexico and Canada non- U S MC A. An arrow connects this blue dot to a red dot at about 25% that reads Post April 2nd, Country specific reciprocal rates. An arrow from this red dot points to a green dot at about 18% that reads, Street expectations post April 9th. Additional fine print, including sources, under the chart. Text includes: Outlooks and past performance are no guarantee of future results. it is not possible to invest directly in an index. Please refer to "Definition of Indices and Terms" for important information.
(SPEECH)
They've been moving. As we know, on April 2, there was a significant amount of tariff activity from the administration, and the street rushed to try to price that into estimates and understand and calibrate. There was a change in that or a pause in that, as of yesterday, where the markets, again, rushed to do that. There was some inflation data this morning.
So we want to talk about what was announced back on April 2. Where do we think we are now, given the announcement yesterday? And then we're going to let that flow through our estimates for financial instruments and markets, to see where that puts us.
So, Steve, I'm going to start with you. And you can see this chart shows a history of effective tariff rates in America. And it talks about where we were last week and yesterday. So help me understand this.
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Text: Stephen Parker, Head of Specialized Strategies.
(SPEECH)
Yeah Thanks, Dave. What this chart shows is the effective tariff rate that the US has on the rest of the world. And what you can see, going back over most of the last century, is that this number has been generally moving in a downward pattern in a world of increasing globalization. Earlier this year, that trend began to reverse, starting with the 20% tariff on China, 25% on Mexico and Canada.
You can see that the lower dot indicates that the effective tariff rate essentially went from something like 2.5% up to 5%. This started to make markets a bit nervous, but things really accelerated last week, on Liberation Day. The resulting tariffs, the announcement of a 10% blanket tariff, as well as country-specific reciprocal tariffs ended up coming in above the high end of the most bearish expectations as it relates to trade policy. That's that upper dot, bringing the 5% up to 25% and causing a two-day sell-off in markets that was really only rivaled during Black Monday, the global financial crisis, and COVID.
Yesterday, we got an announcement that we're taking a pause. And some of those tariffs, the country-specific reciprocal tariffs outside of China, would be put on hold for 90 days, allowing us time to negotiate. Markets took this as a big positive. They took it as a sign that the worst case scenario around trade and, as an extension, growth would not play out. Recession risks seem to move lower. And most importantly, the change in tariffs allowed US manufacturers to think about how they could reorient supply chains. And as a result, you see the dot here that's a little bit lower. This reflects street expectations of what the effective tariff rate will look like in a world where you don't have those reciprocal tariffs globally.
And even though China, as our largest trading partner, saw an increase in tariffs, there's an idea that we can reorient these supply chains. And that, ultimately, will bring us to something more manageable, so something in the 15% to 20% range.
So let's talk about that for a second, because I think that's important. So we had this very large tariff hurdle that would affect US manufacturing, maybe for the positive, US imports, to the negative, and had implications for the dollar. And equity markets immediately priced that in by going lower. You highlighted that.
During the pause, I think one of the reasons-- and you might forecast or speculate that the sell off today is a little bit driven by the recognition that there still is a hurdle. In fact, because China is our largest trading partner, if you put a 125% tariff on it, you don't see that orange dot, really, move down at all, if you don't assume that some of the companies move their supply chain out of China.
And so the green dot assumes some degree of substitution in the supply chain out of China to other countries. Or, of course, you could also assume that those tariffs don't stick. But it's still a very high number versus history. So before we move to Abby to talk about the implications for equity earnings, is your best case-- maybe not best case scenario. Is your forecast that we end up where that green is, or do you think that we move higher or lower?
No. We think that our base case is around where that green dot is. And we have to acknowledge, as you've said, that would still reflect the biggest move higher in tariffs in the last century. We think that that will have an impact on growth, and we think that our estimates coming into the year have to be cut. So at the beginning of the year, we were thinking something like 2% GDP growth. Today, we're around half of that. But the good news is, we think that it takes the tail risk around recession off the table.
So there are two other things happening before we get to equities, which we should cover, because they seem to be, actually, quite dominant in client conversations today. One of them is what's happening in the bond market. The bond market, the equity market, and the US dollar rarely sell off together, but that has been happening for the last two days. It didn't happen after the pause yesterday, but it's happening again today. And so that has caused some to wonder whether or not there is a shift in interest in investing in US assets.
And so the bond market might be selling off as people reduce their allocation to US bonds. The dollar would follow suit. So do either of those concern you? Because they do seem to be super topical.
Yeah. So I think, in fact, a lot of people are speculating that the move in the bond market, rather than the move in the equity market, was what may have pushed us to step back around the tariffs in the announcement yesterday. I think, when you look at the bond market at first, the initial sell off that started at the end of last week, I think, was more fundamental in nature.
It was related to this idea that in a world of higher tariffs, you're talking about higher inflation, slower growth, a stagflationary environment. And Fed chair Powell, in fact, last week, came out and said that with economic data still fairly strong and with uncertainty around inflation, don't look for the Fed to step in immediately to give a little bit of that policy support. I think that's what caused the initial sell off in the bond market.
Now, I think what we're seeing more recently, as the bond market sells off with the stock market and with the dollar, is that question around the value of US assets. We're in a world where investors are very long US and dollar-based assets. And as policy certainty, uncertainty increases and remains high, the premium that you need to pay for that goes up. And so I think what we're seeing now is a little bit of a question around that uncertainty. We don't think that it is destabilizing. We don't see this as a big issue. We think that this will ultimately settle down, but it's something that we have to keep an eye on.
It does, of course, remind us all that we tend to, as US-based investors, if we are-- and even many of the non-US-based investors, given the growth of the US equity market over the last 10 to 20 years, are significantly invested in US dollar assets. And this just reminds us that if the dollar is set to sell off-- and we do forecast it continuing to decline over the next few years-- that is a tailwind for non-dollar assets and reminds us all that a diversified approach to geographical equity investing and asset investing is a smart way to think about it.
We're going to get to some very specific things at the end of this call that we think you can do, given the current market environment. But let's get to the elephant in the room, which is equities. And so, Abby, you are charged with trying to figure out, what are-- everyone wants to know, how close are we to the bottom? Is this the bottom? Was yesterday the bottom? And now, today, the market sells off. So then we say, well, that wasn't the bottom, maybe.
So you have to figure out what our base case is. You have to calibrate everything we just said. Then, because everyone asks you where the bottom may be, you have to then calibrate and determine what might be a bear case and what you've done. And maybe as a sign of the times, no one wants to talk about the bull case right now.
No.
No. As a matter of fact, if the base case happens, they'll be totally happy.
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New slide title: Range of possible outcomes for S&P 500 . Text: Our base case, year-end '25 outlook reduced to $6200 from $6400. S&P 500 Index level with J P Morgan W M year-end-outlook ranges. On the chart, the y axis goes in increments of 500 from 3500 to 7500. The x axis goes from 2023 to 2025 in one-year increments. A green dotted line at about the 6800 mark, reads Bull Case, $6700 to $6900, NTM P/E 21.5x. E P S $315 C Y 26. A grey dotted line at the $6150 mark, reads Base Case, $6150 to $6250, NTM P/E 21.0x. E P S $295 C Y 26. A red dotted line at the$4450 mark, reads Bear Case, $4450 to $4550, NTM P/E 18.0x. E P S $250 C Y 26. A black line fluctuates around the Bear case line through 2023 and then rises to between the bear case and base case lines for most of 2024 before dropping sharply and then rising almost back to the level before the drop at the beginning of 2025.
(SPEECH)
You can see this chart is moving daily. As a matter of fact, if it was being plotted real time, that diamond would be even lower. So help me understand what our base case is and what it anticipates.
And then, when you do run the full tariffs through and you do think about the full implementation or implications of the tariffs, where that takes us-- so we can try to say, all right. As we get closer to that level, maybe I feel better.
So I think contextualizing, coming into the year, looking at this chart, we're very, very close to our base case, looking back, in January, at this chart.
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Abigail Yoder, U. S. Equity Strategist.
(SPEECH)
And that really speaks to the US exceptionalism trade that was very consensus, coming into this year. And we were at 6,400 when we came into this year. And the talk was all about, what are the right-tail risks? Like, what could go wrong? Everything's going to go right. To your point, we were talking more about the bull case at that point.
And then what started swiftly changing post-inauguration day was, left-tail risks were starting to be priced in. There was more discussion around what was going to be happening with tariffs. And we started getting some soft economic data and comments from companies that were more on the confidence standpoint. Like, there wasn't anything real necessarily happening with their businesses, but they're like, this could cause a lot of disruption, and this is making us a little bit uncertain.
So with our March update, in terms of our outlook, we took down our base case to 6,200. And what we've done now, given that post-liberation day, is thought of as a wider range in terms of our base case. Typically, we have 100-point range, a 6,150 to 6,250. That's now 5,700 to 6,200, so a bigger, wider range. And that's really predicated on different valuations and different earnings that we think could come to fruition and, again, avoiding that recessionary scenario that is not our base case.
So that range of outcomes has widened and that range and that earnings growth-- we were talking about this-- is somewhere between, on the lower end of that range, 2%, so basically flat, relative to last year, to 9% on the upper end. And the valuation ranges are something like 19 to 22 times.
So Stephen talked, on the previous slide, about a range of tariffs from what first came out at the lower end of that chart to the April 2 Liberation Day, and then some sort of estimate in the middle that had some expectation of either substitution in China and supply chain or a reduction in the 125% tariff.
We're going to have an earnings growth of 2% to 9%. I guess it's encouraging. It's still going to have earnings growth. You still think the market can withstand a 2021 multiple?
Yeah, it can definitely go there, I mean, because you're not going to be putting trough valuations on trough earnings. So that 21 multiple would be when we think we're closer to the bottom of that earnings trough, when we see the downgrades in terms of the company--
So on the base case, we're talking 2% to 9% growth. And that is inclusive of the tariffs?
Mm-hmm.
And now, we say, all right, but what if the tariffs don't get better? What if the 90-day pause doesn't lead to a settling with other countries? And what if we're back to Liberation Day? That is your bear case.
That's the bear case.
Which is where you take earnings to minus-6, I think, for this year?
Yeah. So essentially no earnings growth for two years.
And you take that, and you think that's trough, so you put a slightly higher multiple on that, because you don't normally get trough multiples on trough earnings, which you just said. And that takes us down to 4,500. So if you're in that camp, you would not want to start buying until we got closer to 4,500?
Yeah. I mean, depending on the day, we're between, right now, I think, 10% to 12% from that level. And the way we're thinking about that level is, there's a lot of numbers that are thrown out around recessions and averages. We like to break down recessionary scenarios into event driven, cyclical and structural. This is viewed as more event driven. It's a decision being made that can be, as we learned yesterday, reversed.
And so typically what you see, in those event-driven recessions, is something like a 25% to 30% decline, from peak to trough. And that's what is represented in that 4,500 level that we have, in terms of a recession.
Got it. And most importantly, there's, at least, what upside to our base case now? 10%?
10% to 20%, from where we are today.
From where we are now.
5,200.
So now, you've got to figure 10% downside for 10% to 20% upside. This is why your job is so hard right now.
Yeah.
Now, a lot of that is predicated upon some amelioration of the tariffs that are currently announced, because the tariff on China is so large, as a trading partner. And so now, the chatter that I've heard all morning is, how quickly can the US companies, if necessary, move their supply chains out of China? So is there a precedent for that? How do you think about that?
Yeah.
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New Slide: Businesses shifted supply chains after the first U.S. China Trade War Text: Mexico, Vietnam, India, and Thailand Gained the most U S Import Share. A chart shows % change in share of total U S imports from 2016 to 2023. The y axis shows percentages in 1-percent increments from negative 5 to positive 4 . Countries on the positive side include Mexico at 3% and Vietnam at 3%. Countries on the negative end are China at negative 5% and Russia at negative 1%. 15 other countries are shown, with less variation.
(SPEECH)
So there seems to be a coalescing around, we are going to go after China, which rhymes with what was happening in 2018. That was really a concentration around what was happening in China. And that was escalated over the past seven years. That really hasn't changed.
And so what has happened over the past seven years is, companies have already been rejiggering their supply chains to Mexico, Vietnam. They've been really reorienting-- India-- within these Asian countries to really offset that impact that we were already getting in 2018, which means there's already an existing subset of manufacturing capabilities.
Can they withstand and take on everything coming from China? Probably not. And so that might likely mean that there's movement elsewhere, but there is already infrastructure in the ground that can support some of this movement. In the near term, that could help with companies as they think about their margins and on-the-go, forward, in terms of earnings.
There's going to be some level of manufacturing in China that's probably immovable. But I do think that our forecast, our base-case forecast, does anticipate that there will there would be, if necessary, significant movement of supply chains that are relatively manageable around places to escape the highest tariffs.
Yes. And you've already heard a couple of companies talking about how they're moving manufacturing to India, for example, and negotiating with suppliers, too, to, say, maybe bring down price from their suppliers in these Asian countries. So there's negotiating at the policy level, but there's also at the company level, ongoing, as well.
So this has been a lot of macro talk. And now, I want to talk a little bit about, what are things we think you could do? What are things from the safest ways to invest to some of the more, I think the world's going to bounce ways to invest? And so let's talk about that on the next slide.
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New slide: Considerations for investors, depending on your mindset. Under Bear case, text reads, For investors who are underweight bonds, believe proposed tariffs are durable, and expect a deep recession. Potential ideas, add diversifiers like gold, and embrace core fixed income and municipal bonds. Under the middle case, text reads: For investors who are overweight cash, believe tariffs will hurt earnings, and expect continued volatile markets. Potential ideas, revisit global diversification, add structed notes with downside barriers, focus on income generation within equity portfolios and select preferred equities, and consider uncorrelated hedge fund strategies. Under the base case, text reads: For investors who are underweight equities, believe tariffs won't last, and expect a sharp rebound in risk assets,. Potential ideas, accelerate phase-in to portfolios, add thematic equity ideas like A I and tech, and focus on assets that have lagged like financials.
(SPEECH)
And I know, Steve, we're going to start with if you're more bearish and then end with if you're more bullish. We'll call our base case bullish at this point. I didn't ask you this before. What do you think would be the best and most bullish headline you could see here? Is it the Fed cuts? Is it low inflation? Is it something on tariffs? Is it a settlement with Europe on something? What would it be?
I think the most bullish thing for markets right now would likely be related to tariffs. I think it would be some sort of an announcement of an actual deal with one of our larger trade partners. I think markets would view that very positively and extrapolate that out to a willingness to negotiate more broadly. I would imagine that something with China, which is, perhaps, the biggest potential market mover, is probably further down the road. But even signs of incremental progress, I think, would get a very positive response from markets.
I think we all concur. That's probably what we would like to see is progress being made within the 90-day-pause window. And if some of those deals are reached, it would probably, just like yesterday, have an impact, although probably not to that magnitude.
So let's start on the left of this. So we have a lot of clients who are concerned. They're worried that this does continue, if not the tariff dialogue, the malaise in the markets. So let's start there, which is probably the least interesting, and then move through to the right, where it starts to get more interesting, depending on your perspective.
I think the most natural tendency in a time like this, when you're seeing 9.5% up days and 5% or 6% down days, is to do nothing. It's very easy to become paralyzed when you see volatility like what we're experiencing right now. But as you said, we think there are opportunities for clients, regardless of where you fall in terms of your forward-looking view of the world.
For clients who are more bearish, who think that this trade war is likely to lead more towards that bear-case scenario, where recession is in the cards, where there's downside in equity markets, they're probably sitting on cash right now. They're probably feeling pretty good about that. And that's obviously helped to insulate the drawdowns. But we actually think that there are areas where you can get more bang for the buck in terms of providing protection and diversification in your portfolio.
So for those clients who are sitting on a lot of cash, looking at diversifiers like gold, that's been one of the big themes from our outlook coming into this year as an important diversifier in portfolios. But also, core fixed income has played a very good role in terms of adding diversification for taxable clients. The muni market, right now, is looking particularly attractive. There's some technical considerations around the amount of supply coming to the market that's making munis look very attractive.
And we think, ultimately, particularly if you think that recession scenario is in the cards, core fixed income is going to play a really important role. And by the way, in that scenario, you're probably looking at Fed cuts, which means that the future return on your cash is going to come down.
So incumbent in that view is a view that if we do get the bear-case scenario, that rates are lower, not higher in a year. There are those who think that we get the bear-case scenario with higher rates. We're not in that camp.
We're not in that camp.
Otherwise, we would just say, stay cash. But if you're worried about a recession, you go to the tried and true playbook, which is, you own bonds, and you hope to see lower yields. So you get the yield plus the capital appreciation.
Correct.
Great. Now, we're in the middle bucket, which is-- I don't know. It's volatile. It may work out. It may not. I don't know that I want to take a lot of directional risk, but I do want to return more than cash. Walk me through it.
So I think there are a couple of different strategies that you can take here. The first one that I think is just core to our strategic way of managing portfolios is to, again, consider global diversification. It's been really easy to own and lean into US assets and US equities, which have outperformed. But this year has demonstrated the value of global diversification.
Some of the trends that we're seeing, whether it's increasingly shareholder friendly activity out of Japan, whether it's a ramp up in fiscal spending out of Europe-- and by the way, those markets are trading at meaningful discounts to their US counterparts.
And have 3% dividend yields.
And have 3% dividend yields.
And so the dollar declining and providing a tailwind to earnings and potential appreciation is most manifest of those. If you're going to give a geography, you're going to say--
Japan is probably the top pick. But Europe is also an important diversifier. So that's number one. Number two, if you want to be a little bit more opportunistic-- you talked about that scenario where there's 10% downside to our bear case, 10% to 20% upside. Using structured notes, where, essentially, you can take advantage of volatility on the market and use options to reconstruct the risk and return profile of the equity market, you can give yourself downside protection that can protect you to the more bear-case levels. You can give yourself upside potential or income that matches our base case. That's a really compelling way to take that first step out of cash or to give yourself a little bit more comfort in taking that equity exposure.
And then, within your equities, you can also think about leaning into quality, leaning into income, things that will add a little bit more of a buffer amidst the volatility. And then, finally, hedge fund strategies, particularly those that are more uncorrelated in nature, are going to give you that diversification with a little bit of market exposure.
We've seen a lot of interest resurrected around the hedge funds and structures over the market volatility, for sure. And of course, through all of these runs, the concept of planning throughout your investment portfolio-- when markets go up, many of our clients engage in philanthropy. They gift away their low-basis stock.
And now, when the market sell off, a lot of our clients engage in trying to find the right assets to fund grants so that they can hopefully find ways to move money out of their state. So when market volatility arrives, an either upside or downside, we're always engaging with our clients about how that fits in with your plans, so that you can think through multigenerational wealth.
Let's get to the bear case, which is going to feel bullish today. You're going to help me understand, if I'm willing to put money to work here, to potentially capture the upside-- because we might say, in every pullback in our lives, markets ultimately went back to make new highs. And so if markets go back to make new highs, that means there's appreciation. And we're talking about the time for it to do that, in which case, a lot of clients are saying, I'm willing to make that bet. I'm either under-invested or I'm optimistic. What would you tell me to do?
So thinking about this 10% to 20% upside in the drawdown that we've seen year to date, the way that we're thinking about it is, there are some companies that have-- because you see correlations, and companies tend to move together when you're in these very volatile times. And so there are some companies that are just selling off because the market is selling off, not because anything, necessarily, fundamentally, is wrong with those companies when we're outside of a recession, which is our base case.
So in terms of thinking about the equity market and two areas that we think are more opportunistic because, again, they're a little bit more insulated, is going to be on the software side, which are trading at very attractive valuations today.
I want to go to that in a second. Clearly, I mean, people are dying to buy tech and are scared of tech. And so we're trying to pick a part of tech, where we think there's some more visibility and protection.
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What did we see from markets last week? Left chart is titled Even software has de-rated significantly. E V/ N T M sales. The line shows a low in 2016 near 6x spiking up to roughly 20x in 2020 and 2021, then dropping sharply back down to around 6x in 2022 to 2024. The right chart is titled Banks now look cheap. Large Cap Banks, N T M P/E ratio. The line in the chart shows a line hovering around 12 x for many years between 1990 and 2025. There is a low down to 4.7 x in about 1990 and spikes up to almost 18 x between years 1998 and 2010, with some fluctuation between roughly 8 x and 14 x from 2010 to present.
(SPEECH)
Less tariff exposure.
Got it. And so let's look on the left. That's software.
So that's software. And also, they're not necessarily exposed to consumer spend. And if you're thinking about AI spend, which we firmly believe on-- we actually had a couple of companies reaffirm their spend, in terms of AI, over the past couple of days, amidst all of this. Like, that's going to be a prioritization for enterprises, in terms of their spend.
And there have been several clients who have wanted to get in on this trade over the past couple of years, but it's been expensive. And so now, this is just a very compelling entry opportunity, in terms of software. And then the other one is banks. We had been bullish on banks, starting in October or November of last year. They took off in terms of the animal spirits trade that went on through the end of last year and into the beginning of this year but have since sold off because there was a lot of ownership there.
But we're all focused on some growth negative policies, in terms of tariffs right now. But there's also this deregulatory agenda that's going on in the background as well. And if we do move forward without the implementation of Basel III, that means $200 billion in excess capital that is held amongst the banks that could be, one, beneficial for the economy and, two, beneficial for their businesses.
So we've got one a little bit lower beta, which is banks. We've got one little higher beta, which is software. And then we have international investments. Steve highlighted Japan, but Europe as well.
And so I want to end going back to this framework, which is simply showing the market and a range of outcomes, trying to calibrate between them. You could probably all put your probabilities. Our bear case probability is 25% or so.
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The slide returns to the chart showing the range of possible outcomes.
(SPEECH)
Bear case, 25%. So 75%, not that, which means there's a range of these investments that you can engage in.
Steve, one last question before we go. This morning, I believe the budget passed. Any implications? Like, do you worry about our deficit at all? I know that may also come into play. Or do you feel like we're OK, that these other issues are far more important to the market right now?
Yeah. I mean, look, the reality is that the concerns about the budget have been in play for years, if not decades. Will it become an issue at some point? Certainly, it could. Do we know when that's going to be? We don't. And we don't want to manage portfolios around tail risks.
I think, in the near term it's going to be the focus on growth, which is going to be more at the forefront. Because the reality is, if we can get policy to a place where it's more supportive of growth, if we can avoid the recessionary scenario and start growing again, that's going to be positive for budgets. It's going to be positive for our fiscal deficit. And that's what I think markets are going to be more focused on in the near term.
Got it. Well, we thank you all. We promised it would be 30 minutes or less. We've achieved our goal with a minute to spare. Thank you all so much for being part of this call today. We hope we won't have to do any more of these and the volatility will subside and that our base case will become prevailing consensus. But if not, we will be back and talk about different ideas and different interpretations, different ideas, and different insights. So thank you all for being part of it. Have a wonderful day.
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