首席投资办公室：您是投票机还是称重机?

卓智汇见

概要

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2018年市场对美联储大幅收紧融资环境的担忧已逐步消退，美联储已表示不急于进一步加息。

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我们继续维持超配美股的观点。考虑到当前的晚周期阶段，我们增加了核心债券的配置并延长了投资组合久期。

去年年底，市场的行为就像一台受情绪主导的「投票机」。标普500指数创下1931年以来最大的12月跌幅。据EPFR Global数据显示，第四季度股市资金流出总计1,080亿美元，其中12月的资金流出达到1,050亿美元。

然而经历了12月的恐慌抛售叠加年底市场流动性匮乏所引发的大幅调整之后，市场已逐步企稳回升。

目前，投资者的注意力正在重新回归基本面，并且提高了对风险溢价的要求。

市场面临的风险正在加大。

出于对美联储过度紧缩货币政策的担忧，华尔街的分析师在年底竞相下调盈利预测。「寻找掩护」似乎成为年底盈利指引的行动号召，感觉就像在年底散播对衰退即将来临的恐惧。

随着当前财报季的推进，美股的盈利前瞻正在逐步回归均衡。2019年的盈利增长将难以重现去年的辉煌。

虽然美股的盈利「增长」已经见顶，但我们认为盈利本身仍有上升空间。这是我们依然超配美股的重要原因。

目前，我们的核心预测是今年的盈利增速将与名义国内生产总值(GDP)增长持平。

尽管12月以来全球股市普遍迎来显著回升，但投资者必需明白，目前的股指只是回到去年12月大幅回调之前的水平。

探底是一个过程，不会一蹴而就。

我们认为近期的回升具有充分的理由和基本面支撑。我们预期市场将会在当前区间内震荡运行，直到本杰明·格雷厄姆的「称重机」理论开始充分发挥作用。

市场信心的重建尚需时日。

我们在去年年初时提出了一个简单的问题：市场是否已经到达顶峰?当时我们的回答是否定的，但我们认为市场正在接近顶峰。

一年人事几翻新。我们曾预测全球经济将在去年上半年实现高于趋势水平的增长，随后见顶回落并在2019年上半年回归趋势水平。尽管这个过程充满波折，但我们的预测基本上得到了印证。

我们认为从目前来看，我们可以合理判断本轮周期已基本达到顶峰。

本轮周期有望在2019年继续演进。

这并不意味着本轮周期已经结束—这一点很容易在噪音中被忽视。

过去一年多，我们一直在讨论晚周期。本轮周期的持续时间和衰退风险的上升已是老生常谈。周期持续的时间越长，我们距离衰退的发生也就越近。

我们应当思考周期将在何时结束以及导致其结束的原因。判断宏观周期的下行趋势非常重要，但任何试图精准定位周期终点的行为都是徒劳。正如我们在去年年初所说，2020年可能是衰退风险显著上升的一个合理时间点。

我们认为今年的衰退风险不值得过分担忧。

粗略估计，我们认为今年经济陷入衰退的概率约为20%。虽然这不是一个很小的概率，但并不比我们曾经预测去年发生衰退的风险更高。

如果一年前让我们来谈论政治因素对投资决策造成的影响，我们会建议投资者重点关注那些对政策具有直接影响的政治因素。

美国税改坚定了我们超配美股的信心，为公司税后利润持续增长提供了动力。

让我们感到尤为沮丧的是，政治因素在去年成为了推动市场不确定性上升的主导力量。

政治已成为主宰市场行情的一大变量。

政治已成为影响市场行情，尤其是投资者情绪的一大变素。美国政府停摆、法国「黄背心」运动和全球贸易摩擦都将给一季度的经济数据造成干扰。

英国脱欧依然是一个真正值得担心的问题。令人惊讶的是，市场目前仍没有对无协议「硬脱欧」可能带来的连锁反应给以足够的重视。

我们希望理性能够占上风。「硬脱欧」的后果非常严重。

市场偏好政治僵局。

政治噪音已逐渐成为放大市场下跌风险的催化剂。更具煽动性的政治噪音将会给市场情绪造成负面冲击。

虽然投资者可能会受情绪影响而做出非理性决策，但基本面依然是主导股市走势的核心因素。

我们承认市场有时会从基本面决策快速转向情绪化波动。这种波动能够为我们带来值得把握的投资机会，正如去年12月和今年1月初的回调。

忍一时之气，成一世之功。共勉之。

我们是长期投资者。从整个周期来看，我们坚信市场仍是一台衡量股票内在价值的「称重机」。

如欲了解如何将这些观点体现在您的投资组合上，请与您的摩根大通代表联络。

Ideas & Insights

CIO Views: A weighing machine

In the short run, markets behave like a voting machine. In the long run, they’re a weighing machine. As a weighing machine, markets focus on fundamentals and valuation. In the short run, investors are easily distracted by uncertainty and emotion. That observation was originally made by Benjamin Graham.

Richard Madigan, Chief Investment Officer for J.P. Morgan Private Bank, highlights that after a sharp selloff in December, markets are refocusing on fundamentals and slowing, but durable, economic growth.

We invite you to click “Read More” to watch or read our Chief Investment Office discussing their views on markets and portfolios as well as their insights into the equity, fixed income and alternatives markets today.

Highlights

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After a sharp selloff at the end of last year, markets are refocusing on fundamentals and a macro environment of economic growth that is slowing but remains durable

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2018 fears that the Federal Reserve was on track to significantly tighten financial conditions have dissipated, as the Fed has now signaled that it will be patient in its policy decision making

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We maintain conviction in an overweight to U.S. equities. We have added to core bonds and extended portfolio duration as the cycle has matured

Late last year, markets behaved like a voting machine. Having seen investor capitulation in December—exaggerated by year-end market illiquidity—we’re beginning to see markets find their footing. 

It was a riotous fourth quarter. There isn’t a worse December on record for the S&P 500 since 1931. According to EPFR Global, equity markets saw $108 billion of outflows in the fourth-quarter, $105 billion in December.

Investors are refocusing on fundamentals. With the exception of December, we view investors demanding a higher risk premium as merited. 

Risks are higher.

With fear that the Fed would overshoot on policy tightening, we also saw a year-end dash by Wall Street analysts to see who could most quickly revise earnings estimates lower. “Run for cover” seemed the call to action for year-end earnings guidance. It felt similar to year-end fearmongering about an impending recession.

As we’ve moved through the current earnings season, balance is coming back to the earnings outlook. 

2019 earnings growth is not going to repeat last year’s extraordinary performance. We’ve seen peak earnings growth. We do not believe we have seen peak earnings. That’s a key reason why we remain overweight U.S. equities.

Our base case is for earnings to grow in line with nominal GDP this year.

While the bounce seen across equity markets since December is notable, investors need to recognize we’ve simply reset index levels back to where markets were trading before December’s dramatic sell-off. 

Bottoming is a process, not an event. 

We say that because we feel the recent recovery is deserved and fundamentally driven. 

We expect markets can bounce along in their current range until Ben Graham’s weighing machine fully re-engages. 

Confidence takes time to rebuild.

We asked a simple question at the start of last year. Is this as good as it gets? Our answer at the time was no, acknowledging we were getting closer to it. 

What a difference a year makes. We thought we would see above-trend global growth the first half of last year and that the pace of global growth would peak, returning to trend in the first half of 2019. With bumps, that’s how it’s playing out.

We think it’s now fair to say that the current cycle is about as good as it’s going to get.

We still have 2019 to get through.

That isn’t the same as saying the cycle is over, which somehow gets lost in the noise. 

We’ve been talking about being late cycle for well over a year. The length of this cycle isn’t new news, nor is a rising risk of recession. The longer a cycle extends, the closer we get to recession.

It is important to question when the cycle will end and what can break it. Identifying when we think a macro cycle begins to roll over is important. Pretending to do so with exact precision is folly. As we mentioned early last year, 2020 seems a reasonable line in the sand for when recession risk becomes more pronounced.

Pulling recession risk into this year seems overdone.

If we had to put a very rough number on the probability of recession this year, we would say it’s around 20%. That isn’t a negligible number. But it’s no higher than what we thought about the risk of recession last year.

If you asked us one year ago how politics factors into our investment process, we would have said it matters when it directly impacts policy. 

That was certainly the case with U.S. tax reform, which has helped us have conviction in an overweight to U.S. equities. After-tax earnings are growing.

What made last year particularly frustrating is that the epicenter for rising investor uncertainty was politics. 

Politics is now part of the market narrative.

Politics is now part of the market narrative, in particular as it relates to sentiment. The U.S. government shutdown, not to mention “yellow-jacket” protests in France and global trade friction, will distort first-quarter economic data.

Brexit remains a real concern. We continue to be surprised by how complacent markets appear about the knock-on effects of a no-deal, hard Brexit. 

We hope rational minds prevail.

Markets prefer political stasis.

We’re entering a world where political noise can exaggerate downside risk to markets. Should political noise become more incendiary, it will weigh on sentiment. 

While emotion can get the better of investors, fundamentals are what matter.

We are appreciative that markets can quickly switch from fundamentals to emotion. That creates investment opportunity, as we saw in December and early January.

We’re long-term investors. 

Over a cycle, we firmly believe that markets are a weighing machine.

For ideas on how to incorporate these views appropriately into your portfolio, we invite you to contact your J.P. Morgan advisor.

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