{"id":8878,"date":"2019-04-13T20:25:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T20:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=8878"},"modified":"2019-04-13T20:25:30","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T20:25:30","slug":"credit-markets-and-the-forward-earnings-curve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=8878","title":{"rendered":"Credit Markets and the Forward Earnings Curve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sourcing Bloomberg \/ Barclays data, are the YTD returns for the bond market asset classes as of Friday, April 12th, 2019:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>US Corp HiGrade:<\/strong> <\/em>+5.13%<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>US Corp High Yld:<\/strong><\/em> +8.14%<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Mortgages (MBS):<\/strong><\/em> +1.89%<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Municipals:<\/em><\/strong> +2,67%<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>US Treas:<\/em> <\/strong>+1.32%<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>US TIPS:<\/em><\/strong> +2.85%<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Global Sov&#8217;rn:<\/em><\/strong> +1.03%<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Emerging Mkts:<\/strong><\/em> +5.41%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Charlie Bilello of Pension Partners mentioned several times last year that the 2017 and 2018 were the worst two years for the US bond market since the early 1980&#8217;s, 1980 and 1981 I thought he referenced.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve seen a nice bounce back in credit markets already in 2019, and I think this portends well for the US stock market and the SP 500.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a nice YTD return for high yield for 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Clients have been told to expect an all-time-high in the SP 500 as long as credit remains healthy.<\/p>\n<p>Have to say, I&#8217;m still shocked at the negative sentiment around the stock market too. Investors are scared to death and pundits seem overly bearish. The residue of 2008.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The Forward Earnings Curve for the SP 500:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>About 10 days ago I\/B\/E\/S by Refinitiv published the &#8220;SP 500 2020 bottom-up estimates&#8221; which gives us a look 7 &#8211; 8 quarters out.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a quick analysis of the numbers:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8880\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8880\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?attachment_id=8880\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8880\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8880\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fwdearnings-curve41319-1-300x52.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"52\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fwdearnings-curve41319-1-300x52.png 300w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fwdearnings-curve41319-1.png 747w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8880\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">click to enhance \/ enlarge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, at least through the first 3 quarters, investors lap the strong y\/y growth in SP 500 earnings, much of it aided by the tax cut. I should keep reminding readers that SP 500 earnings grew 23% last year &#8211; 14% if we consider just &#8220;organic&#8221; growth and remove the tax cut impact per Factset &#8211; but the SP 500 fell 4.35% in calendar &#8217;18, and now in 2019, SP 500 earnings are currently expecting a 3% &#8211; 4% annual growth (I think that&#8217;s too low) and already the SP 500 is up 15% YTD.<\/p>\n<p>PE contraction vs PE expansion &#8211; it continues to wreak havoc with forecasts and opinions.<\/p>\n<p>Note however, 2020 bottom-up estimates and expected growth next year: does the SP 500 look out that far ? Sure, look back at &#8217;07, the SP 500 peaked 11 months prior to the Lehman default.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Summary \/ conclusion: <\/strong><\/em>Only David Templeton of Horan Capital Advisors (@HoranCapitalADV) and Cam Hui, of Humble Student of the Markets (@HumbleStudent) have ever taken the time to note the importance of beyond the current calendar year for SP 500 earnings estimates. Here was a <a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=5953\">timely blog post<\/a> in May, 2016, and then again <a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=6539\">our forecast for 2017<\/a> which was pretty accurate based on historical earnings data. Here is the downside of forecasting though: sometimes the numbers just don&#8217;t lineup to give you the confidence for a forecast. You still try and provide a forecast, as<a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=8584\"> this blog did for 2019<\/a>\u00a0but the forecast called for a &#8220;low double-digit&#8221; return for the SP 500 at the high end, and we&#8217;ve already blown through that.<\/p>\n<p>The credit markets still look healthy and with the Fed on hold, it could be a good year for the credit, fixed-income segments and that should continue to portend positively for US stocks.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t complicate what maybe doesn&#8217;t need to be complicated.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sourcing Bloomberg \/ Barclays data, are the YTD returns for the bond market asset classes as of Friday, April 12th,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,226,179,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bond-markets","category-credit-markets","category-forward-sp-500-earnings-curve","category-hyg"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8878"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8882,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8878\/revisions\/8882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}