by ilene - February 10th, 2010 12:21 pm
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Tim Bond of Barclays has been remarkably accurate in predicting the strength and length of the global equity rally. Despite the many signs of weakness over the last 9 months Bond has remained very optimistic (read his bullish note from 2009 here). He claimed that analyst estimates and high levels of bearishness would lay the foundation for a continuing equity rally.
“Never has a bull market climbed a steeper wall of worry. Despite a proliferation of positive economic indicators, the consensus remains resolutely gloomy. Bullish economists are still rarer than hens’ teeth. The average forecast for Q3 US GDP growth is an anaemic 0.8% increase, which would be by far the slowest first quarter of any recovery on record.”
He couldn’t have been much more accurate. The economic landscape is quickly changing, however, and Bond’s outlook is turning decidedly less optimistic. Bond now believes the problem of debt is becoming contagious in Europe and that higher bond yields will accompany the process:
“Fiscal dynamics point towards higher government bond yields in many economies, including the UK and US. History is unequivocal in linking fiscal deterioration to higher yields. This point is clearly becoming recognized by investors. As a result, a contagious process has started, during which risk premia in bonds, equities and currencies adjust higher to reflect the fiscal situation. This process is unlikely to remain confined to southern Europe, but will eventually embrace all those economies with sizeable budget deficits.”
Bond has argued for much of the last year that low rates and de-leveraging were actually very bullish for equities. As monetary policy begins to shift and fiscal policy remains imprudent the landscape is shifting. Like Teun Draaisma, Bond is concerned about the impending higher rate environment that will accompany global rate increases and continuing risks associated with an indebted global economy. Bond argues the long-term situation remains unfavorable for 3 primary reasons:
- 1) The majority of the G20 is a fiscal mess
- 2) Demographic trends of the G20 are highly negative
- 3) Containing the long-term government debt problem will be painful
Most alarming to Bond, however, is the close relationship between high…
Tags: BULL MARKET, debt, Economy, equity investors, equity risk, GDP, growth rate, high debt levels, rising rates, Stock Market, Tim Bond
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by ilene - August 1st, 2009 3:44 pm
Last week, we posted a couple articles discussing Tim Bond’s bullish arguments favoring a swift V-shaped economic recovery (see PIMCO Versus Barclays: Economic Pessimist – Economic Optimist and You Fools Don’t Get It: This Is A V-Shaped Recovery!) Our friend Michael Panzner takes issue with Bond and presents the other side. – Ilene
Courtesy of Michael Panzner at Financial Armageddon
I was originally going to write about something else, but after a loyal Financial Armageddon visitor alerted me to the following Financial Times commentary, "Insight: Learn to Love the Recovery," by Tim Bond, head of asset allocation at Barclays Capital, I changed my mind. Frankly, I couldn’t believe this piece of propagandistic excretia was written by a senior financial industry executive who makes decisions about where to invest. Because some FT readers might be fooled into thinking Mr. Bond had something useful to say, I felt duty-bound to respond to his "insights" with a few brief comments of my own (interspersed with his italicized text):
Never has a bull market climbed a steeper wall of worry. In spite of a proliferation of positive economic indicators, the consensus remains gloomy. Bullish economists are than hens’ teeth.
The average forecast for third-quarter US gross domestic product growth is a weak 0.8 per cent, which would be by far the slowest first quarter of any recovery on record. Since 1945, the average annualised real US growth rate in the first two quarters of recovery is 7 per cent. History provides abundant evidence that the deeper the recession, the stronger the bounce. Even the recovery from the Great Depression conformed to this rule, real US GDP grew 10.8 per cent in 1934 and 8.9 per cent in 1935.
There are so many inconsistencies and logical fallacies in the above paragraph that it’s hard to know where to begin. Among other things, Mr. Bond assumes that the consensus is correct in seeing a third-quarter uptick in GDP. That may or may not be the case, but given how wrong economists have been about every aspect of this downturn so far, I’d lean towards the latter. Even if they are right, what evidence does he have that a third-quarter rebound will be the turning point, rather than the equivalent of an economic dead-cat bounce? Moreover, his assumption that the postwar time frame is the relevant reference period when…
Tags: Michael Panzner, Propaganda, Tim Bond, V-shaped recovery
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by ilene - July 29th, 2009 8:37 pm
Courtesy of Tom Lindmark at But Then What
You couldn’t find a more divergent view of the future of the US economy than those offered up today by Bill Gross of Pimco and Tim Bond from Barclays. Gross is not deviating from his persistent call of chronic low growth while Bond says we have it all wrong, a boom is coming.
Gross spends an interesting first couple of paragraphs in his monthly newsletter castigating other investment managers for the fees they charge. It’s not revolutionary stuff and it’s a bit self-serving, nevertheless he makes a good point about fees.
He then gets into the meat of his presentation which is an argument that we have for decades the country has operated on an assumption that nominal GDP would grow at around 5%. This is in fact what hat has happened and accordingly the structure is geared towards that sort of growth. Now we have slipped below that number and he sees constraints in getting back there.
Gross argues that the economy can not get back to the 5% level on its own due to overcapacity and is destined to wander in either a recessionary spiral or some sort of stagflationary environment. The remedy for this is for government to substitute for the private sector. Gross contends that government this time is limited in its responses. Government leverage, in his view, is less robust than private leverage and thus will not contribute as much to recovery. Additionally, he believes that both domestic and international political constraints exist that prevent government from doing much stimulus over and above what it has already committed to. The bottom line is his expectation for nominal GDP growth of around 3% once a recovery takes hold.
Here is his concluding paragraph:
Investment conclusions? A 3% nominal GDP “new normal” means lower profit growth, permanently higher unemployment, capped consumer spending growth rates and an increasing involvement of the government sector, which substantially changes the character of the American capitalistic model. High risk bonds, commercial real estate, and even lower quality municipal bonds may suffer more than cyclical defaults if not government supported. Stock P/Es will rest at lower historical norms, and higher
…
Tags: Barclays, Bill Gross, Economy, PIMCO, Tim Bond
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
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