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GEMOLOGIST Paradise, Purgatory Or the Pit: What Can DM Managers Learn from EM Managers About Forecasting?

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GEMOLOGIST Paradise, Purgatory Or the Pit: What Can DM Managers Learn from EM Managers About Forecasting? GEMOLOGIST Paradise, purgatory or the pit: what can DM managers learn from EM managers about forecasting? Gary Greenberg, CFA Head of Hermes Emerging Markets Hermes Emerging Markets Newsletter Q2 2017 For professional investors only www.hermes-investment.com 2 GEMOLOGIST PARADISE, PURGATORY OR THE PIT PARADISE, PURGATORY OR THE PIT: WHAT CAN DM MANAGERS LEARN FROM EM MANAGERS ABOUT FORECASTING? The cracks in the global economic WHAT TWO WORLD WARS AND DONALD firmament, while real, are unlikely TRUMP TELL US ABOUT THE MARKET’S to bring the sky crashing down right PREDICTIVE POWERS There’s a widely held belief that the financial markets are prescient, away. Institutions are resilient, and the current consensus view is that the post-US election bull having been strengthened throughout market heralds a bright economic future. But a careful look at the decades of exercising power, but the performance of the German stock market in the 1930s and 1940s should provoke questions about the assumed infallibility of markets problems in the developed world will (see figure 1). foment in the years to come and Figure 1. Blitz then bust: performance of the German stock market, 1930-1950 manifest as significant investment risks. 12 Prices frozen This results in a comparatively upbeat 11 Barbarossa view of emerging markets – however, 10 Battle of Britain Market closed Stalingrad August 1944 if developed markets collapse, 9 Blitzkrieg euphoria 8 all bets are off anyway. Worries that 7 Hitler comes Hitler has gone too far 6 to power 5 4 KEY POINTS 3 Market closed due to credit crisis 2 1931 1941 1937 1947 1932 1935 1942 1933 1945 1939 1950 1936 1934 1943 1938 1949 1930 1946 1944 1948 1940 uuCan financial markets predict the future? Source: “Wealth, War and Wisdom” by Barton Biggs, published by Wiley in 2008 During some pivotal episodes in modern history, investors have collectively made disastrously wrong The rise of the market in the early and mid-1930s made sense – in forecasts. Hollywood, meanwhile, has envisaged events financial terms, at least, despite the horrific events in store – as Hitler to come with more clarity had found a way to revive industrial production and boost uuAfter more than three decades, the largely benign employment. The market rose through the Anschluss of Austria and macroeconomic environment in developed markets invasion of Czechoslovakia, and became euphoric throughout the seems to be changing for the worse. This requires blitzkrieg. Finally, during the siege of Stalingrad, when things started investors to dust off old analytical toolkits still used by going south, badly, prices were frozen. And when the market reopened emerging markets managers for top-down research in 1948, valuations reflected the ruination of much of Europe. uuWe illustrate how top-down analysis can inform a But it wasn’t only German investors who failed to see clearly in the fog bottom-up stock portfolio and provide an emerging of war. After World War I started, it took US investors two years to markets outlook for the next two years – which seems realise that the effects would be felt outside Europe (see figure 2). calm relative to the tumult of the world political economy HERMES EMERGING MARKETS 3 NEWSLETTER Q2 2017 Figure 2. The US market took two years to figure out that WWI is a disaster MACRO RISK RETURNS 14.0 6.0 TO DEVELOPED MARKETS Assassination of 12.0 4.0 Duke Ferdinand Some investors may say that EM managers have nothing to teach 10.0 2.0 DM managers. After all, advanced bottom-up analysis can be applied 8.0 0.0 to greater effect in DMs than in the emerging world, with the ravages % of the Great Depression, two world wars and the 1970s oil crises being 6.0 -2.0 distant memories and the 2008 financial crisis seen as a rare 4.0 -4.0 meltdown. Therefore many DM specialists sideline top-down analysis. 2.0 -6.0 As Peter Lynch, a fund manager famous for his track record of 0.0 -8.0 outperformance against the S&P500 from 1977 to 1990, remarked: “If you spend 13 minutes analysing economic and market forecasts, Oct 1913 Oct 1914 Oct 1915 Oct 1916 Apr 1913 Apr 1914 Apr 1915 Apr 1916 Apr 1917 Jun 1913 Jun 1914 Jun 1915 Jun 1916 Jun 1917 Feb 1913 Feb 1914 Feb 1915 Feb 1916 Feb 1917 Dec 1912 Dec 1913 Dec 1914 Dec 1915 Dec 1916 Aug 1913 Aug 1914 Aug 1915 Aug 1916 Aug 1917 you’ve wasted 10 minutes.” S&P LHS ERP LHS SPX 3MMA Change (%) How has such a view been working out for DM managers? Very well, it Source: Robert Shiller, Macquarie Research as at February 2017 turns out. Ignoring macro has been a fantastic approach – not because macro hasn’t mattered, but because it’s been very supportive of So, given these telling instances of the market being wrong-footed by market performance. Over the past 30 years, the maximum span of major historical events, investors in search of an oracle may be better many investment careers, the developed-world index has been served by cosmic synchronicity – or Hollywood. In Back to the Future II, compounding at 5% a year, accumulating to 400% for the period. released in 1989, the local bully, Biff Tannen, makes a fortune at the Take out Japan, which has returned nothing, and the numbers look race track, uses it exclusively and unashamedly for himself to build a even better, with the S&P500 compounding at nearly 8% a year. It gambling empire, and publicly advocates plastic surgery by pointing to would seem that the Philosopher’s Stone, which can turn base metals the women in his family as case studies. Biff uses the profits from his into gold, might exist after all. In truth, however, positive forces of 27-floor casino to gain political power, turning Hill Valley into a finance rather than alchemy have been at work. lawless, dystopian wasteland where hooliganism reigns, dissent is crushed and propaganda hails Biff as America’s greatest living folk Three powerful tailwinds have supported DM stock returns: hero. Shortly after the US presidential election, Bob Gale, the film’s corporate tax rates, interest charges and the rate used to discount screenwriter, revealed that he had modeled Biff the gambling mogul corporate cash flows have all fallen substantially and steadily on a real-life 1980s New York real-estate mogul: Donald Trump. throughout this period. So here we are, back in the future! Although descending into the pit, Since peaking in 1981, US 10-year bond yields, which determine the like Hill Valley, is only one possible future for the US, the risk of risk-free rate of return, have declined steadily from 15.8% to the American society unravelling is becoming all too real. Sadly, this current level of 2.4%. Equity-market valuations have moved by a problem also extends to other major developed economies, which similar extent, though in the opposite direction (see figure 3). brings us to the chief question we aim to answer in this issue of Figure 3. The S&P500 has re-rated substantially as interest rates fell Gemologist: what can developed market (DM) managers can learn from emerging market (EM) managers? S&P 500 Trailing P/E Ratio vs US 10 year generic bond yield Feb 1977 to Feb 2017 30 20 25 15 20 Yield % 10 Many DM specialists P/E Ratio 15 5 sideline top-down analysis. 10 As Peter Lynch, a fund manager 5 0 famous for his track record Feb 11 Feb 17 Feb 15 Feb 77 Feb 13 Feb 91 Feb 81 Feb 01 Feb 97 Feb 79 Feb 87 Feb 07 Feb 95 Feb 85 Feb 93 Feb 99 Feb 05 Feb 83 Feb 89 Feb 03 Feb 09 of outperformance against S&P 500 US Generic Govt 10 Year Yield the S&P500, remarked: Source: Bloomberg as at March 2017 “If you spend 13 minutes analysing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted 10 minutes.” 4 GEMOLOGIST PARADISE, PURGATORY OR THE PIT This decline in the 10-year bond yield is significant because the risk- demographics and weak demand growth, have not been needed to free rate is one of the key determinants of the value of a security, fund capacity expansion and have therefore been available to buy back discounting the cash flow of the underlying company. The risk-free shares. In turn, this has boosted earnings per share and therefore rate is the main component of the denominator, and it is obvious that valuations and, coincidentally, c-suite compensation. a number divided by 15.8 will be a whole lot less than the same number by 2.4! In effect, the rate used to discount cash flows has Little wonder few in DM pay a lot of attention to macro risk. The dropped by 85%, boosting valuations significantly. In the US market, tailwinds of lower and lower tax, discount and corporate interest rates the trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has almost tripled from less have bailed out investors during volatile periods in the last 30 years. than 8x in 1981 to nearly 22x today – despite Black Monday, the Naive optimism has been a winning investment philosophy. US Russian and Asian currency crises, the dotcom bubble and the 2008 investors, especially those who have never experienced an financial crash. environment with rising tax, discount or corporate interest rates can be forgiven for assuming that this is a normal state of affairs.1 Even better, in 1980 the top US marginal personal tax rate was 70%, which declined to 50% in 1986 and is 39% today.
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