J.P.Morgan Insights (audio)

In an idealized world of medical practice, you would go to the doctor, describe a few symptoms, undergo a few tests and then listen carefully to the doctor’s diagnosis, prognosis and prescription. The diagnosis might well be due to something entirely out of your control and the prescription would often be a pharmaceutical. However, very frequently, the prescription would be in the form of advice on life-style changes. In an idealized world, you would take that advice and implement it.

To tell the truth, I haven’t done much hiking up mountains recently.  I did scale a few minor peaks, years ago, when our sons were in boy scouts.  However, it was always hot weather heading up and, between separating those young gentlemen who decided to fashion light sabers from tree branches and attempting to corral those whose first instinct was to chase into the woods after squirrels, it was a somewhat trying business.  The reward, for all, of course, was the view from the top and it was always breathtaking.  However, as you stood on the summit, things would cool off pretty dramatically and you had the sober knowledge that safely descending from the top is always a trickier proposition than getting there.

My father worried out loud, broadcasting his concern about a wide range of issues, ranging from the suspicious surplus of toothbrushes in the upstairs bathroom and his children’s acquisition of strange accents to declining standards in public education and the ominous state of the government’s finances.  My mother fretted more quietly, sparing her vocal chords at the expense of her sleep.   

Finally, traditional indicators also may be missing the mark in predicting persistent inflation.  In particular, in the June Summary of Economic Projections, most members of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee in effect professed that an unemployment rate of 4% or higher was necessary to attain the Fed’s long-term objective of 2% inflation.  However, the unemployment rate has now been below 4% for 21 straight months and, yet, since March of last year, year-over-year wage growth has drifted down from a peak of 5.9% to 4.3% last month. 

For almost 60 years, the British journalist and New York resident, Alistair Cooke, recorded a weekly, 15-minute radio commentary entitled Letter from America. As a teenager, I would listen to it, late at night, on the BBC World Service. Cooke had a beautiful speaking voice and a remarkable way with words, as he painted landscapes of American culture and portraits of America’s personalities. Letter from America made me feel well-acquainted with this country long before I arrived here. Cooke, of course, had strong opinions based on his own observations. However, he also had a quality of balance – he was not one to be swept up in the latest national obsession but, rather, spoke of his world in a measured way.

The only real drawback to my job is the number of flights I have to take - but this is a serious drawback when evening flights get delayed. Without the energy to do any productive work, I often combat the misery by playing board games on my iPad and I’ve lately added Monopoly to my repertoire.  I used to play Monopoly as a child, of course, but my strategy has evolved with the years. When I was younger, I hated owning boring railroads.  Now I quite like them.  They’ll never provide with the fortune you can extract from a guest at your Boardwalk hotel.  But if you own all four of them, they generate a nice steady income and sooner or later, someone will pick up the Chance card that triggers the minor windfall of double rent.

To be good long term investor, you need courage and you need brains.  However, you need them in different quantities at different times.  In the depths of a bear market, you mostly need courage since it’s almost a “no-brainer” that the economy will recover and will lift financial assets with it.  In a bull market, its mostly about brains since, while people are less haunted by economic fears, valuations are higher, increasing the need to be more discriminating in both asset allocation and security selection.

As the calendar flips to August this week, consumers, workers, investors and the Federal Reserve all have reason to be pleased with recent data. Stock market returns have been strong all year, economic growth has been surprisingly resilient, unemployment remains very low and, despite all of this, inflation has fallen sharply. The Fed continues to tighten in a manner that appears aggressive given the balance of risks. However, so far, this does not appear to have inflicted too much damage on the overall economy or markets. So where do we go from here? One approach to this question is just to review an economic checklist of Growth, Jobs, Inflation, Profits and Rates.

The pandemic was my excuse to abandon piano lessons.  It wasn’t that I wouldn’t practice or didn’t enjoy pounding away on the keyboard.  The problem was that my piano teacher, Tatiana, is a perfectionist.  She wanted me to get it exactly and precisely right and so I practiced the same piece over and over.  She would smile as I did my lessons but it was a strained and pathetic smile, as the masterpieces that she had loved from her youth were mangled, tortured and slowly murdered in a most grizzly fashion by yours truly.  Finally, I couldn’t do it to her anymore and I used the pandemic as a way out.

Over the centuries, an abiding tension among many major religions has been the pendulum of severity. One era will be marked by a relaxed view, where smiling clergy make liberal allowances for minor transgressions. However, this is often followed by a puritanical reaction, wherein the flock is warned that the path to salvation is an exceedingly narrow and rocky one. The Federal Reserve seems to have undergone a similar transformation in recent years. Long gone are the days of “average inflation targeting” and praise for the beneficial effects of a super-tight labor market. Inflation is now the eternal and infernal enemy and the Fed will yield no quarter in battling it.

When I first arrived in this country, 40 years ago this summer, my strongest impression was that America was a land of optimists. European economists, politicians, commentators and consumers all saw the outlook as dark and troubled. However, Americans, facing equal challenges, seemed to see the glass as half full.

I have a sad tale to relate.  After dodging Covid for the last three years, my wife Sari and I were at a wedding two weeks ago and the virus decided to crash the party.  Two days later, I tested positive and Sari tested negative.  I’ll spare you the grim details, since almost everyone has had a similar experience.  However, despite only mild and fleeting symptoms, I experienced a rebound and so I’m sitting alone, testing daily, and waiting for a negative so I can return to society. Investors in 2023 have also been waiting for a negative.  Waiting to see if economic growth would turn negative.  Waiting for a well-established negative trend on inflation.  And waiting for the Federal Reserve to perceive enough general negativity to stop raising interest rates.  As the first half of the year draws to a close, the wait continues.  However, in rather sharp contrast to my predicament, there is plenty that investors can do while they wait.

One of the advantages of being back in the office, when I am actually in the office, is I get to hear a variety of opinions.  These opinions are sharply divided today on the issue of a U.S. recession.  One camp feels that recession is inevitable.  Another sees a path to a “soft-landing”.  Of course, this argument really refers to a recession starting in the next quarter or two.  Sooner or later, a recession will occur. However, that brings up other questions, namely, when will a recession start, how deep will it be and how long will it last? 

Markets in the week ahead will be focused on Wednesday’s FOMC meeting. We expect the Fed to leave the federal funds rate unchanged although both the post-meeting statement and the dot plot will likely emphasize that inaction this week should be considered “skipping a rate hike” rather than putting an end to monetary tightening. Indeed, Fed communications could explicitly warn of a possible further rate hike in July. On balance, however, cooling data on inflation and growth between now and that meeting should be enough to convince the Fed that no further tightening is warranted. Some of these data will be released this week.

In 1787, on the last day of the Constitutional Convention, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government had been agreed to.  He famously replied, “A Republic – if you can keep it”.  He was, of course, alluding to the danger that partisanship or ill-advised policies could yet return the young country to the monarchy it had so recently escaped. 

I am shockingly, comically bad at golf.  However, that doesn’t stop me from occasionally watching more gifted souls play the game.  One of their techniques is to examine a putt from multiple perspectives.  They take a careful look at the green as they come up to mark their ball, look at the putt from the side, squat down to consider it from the opposite direction, and generally scout out the lay of the land from all angles.  For myself, since I’m generally wielding the putter playing my seventh or eighth, I don’t further test the patience of my companions with such preparations.  However, I will admit that, for the average golfer, looking at a putt from multiple angles yields useful information. A similar rationale can be applied to monetary policy decisions.  Changes in monetary policy are among the most important drivers of stock and bond returns.  Consequently, one of the questions we are asked most frequently is where will the federal funds rate be at the end of the year?

Across the economy, the outlook is for slower growth.  Slower growth in demand, in employment, in profits and in inflation.  Recession is by no means certain.  However, a slow-growing economy is rather like a slow-moving bicycle – the slower its moves, the easier it is to topple it over.  And so, in the spring of 2023, there is a significant risk of recession starting before the end of the year. 

On Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard, ten miles west of the town of Lisdoonvarna, stand the majestic Cliffs of Moher.  They are a popular tourist attraction but also a dangerous one – in the 25 years ended in 2017, 66 people tragically plunged over the cliffs to their death. Of course, there is no reason why anyone should meet such a fate.  The long grassy path beside the cliffs is bounded by a wire fence, with frequent signs warning visitors not to cross it or to venture any closer to the cliffs.  However, inevitably a few foolishly ignore the warning and, for a few of them, it is their last bit of foolishness on this earth

The quantity of money was a big issue in the background of my childhood. There were no money machines or credit cards (at least in our house). So every Monday, my father would write a check for cash, usually for less than 100 pounds, and hand it to my mother for housekeeping for the week. She would then drive to the bank, cash it, put the notes in her purse and slowly dole them out as the days went by and she tried to keep a family of seven fed. Throughout the week, as she shopped and worried, she would know how much, to the penny, was left. The quantity of money was a binding constraint in her life.

It seems like a distant memory now, but in the decade before the pandemic, the main preoccupation of the Federal Reserve was boosting inflation, as measured by the headline personal consumption deflator, to 2%.  Inflation undershot this target in ten of the twelve years between 2008 and 2019.