“The vaccine development means corporate America’s earnings power may be greatly under-appreciated,” Bloomberg’s Lu Wang and Claire Ballentine wrote Friday afternoon, paraphrasing Leuthold’s Jim Paulsen.
That sounds like a wholly generic assessment — something that might have been plucked from a Rolodex of boilerplate, ready-made COVID copy. But it actually strikes at the heart of the problem for market participants trying to wrap their heads around what look like stratospheric valuations.
Stocks closed at all-time highs Friday, but that was juxtaposed with another record day of COVID cases in the US. Believe it or not, the country logged more than 190,000 infections in a single, 24-hour period. The seven-day average is above 130,000.
If this weren’t a life or death situation, it would be comical. Between a totally inept federal response and a citizenry which has convinced itself that wearing a face covering to the grocery store is an intolerable incursion on individual liberty, America has surrendered the fight. That’s absurd enough on its own, but it becomes unfathomably ridiculous when you consider that there are millions of Americans who (quite literally) believe the country’s elderly population is acceptable collateral damage if it means preserving the public’s “right” to buy beer and Fritos without wearing a mask in the checkout line.
A safe and effective vaccine could offset the damage done by widespread stupidity, but only if it (the stupidity) doesn’t extend to the shot itself. One worry going forward is that the very same voters who refuse to wear a face covering to the grocery store won’t get the vaccine due to similar concerns about the preservation of individual “liberty,” belief in conspiracy theories about vaccines in general, or some combination of both.
But, for corporate America, this may not be too troubling assuming vaccine rollout is reasonably smooth. Between inoculation and a more competent, science-based approach to containment, it’s likely that 2021 will represent a real “rounding” of the proverbial “turn,” as opposed to the descent into pestilence ludicrously billed as “progress” by the current administration.
If that turns out to be the case, the chart below could mechanically “correct” without the need for a steep decline in equity prices.
That may sound wildly optimistic, but I think one nuance that’s often given short shrift is the notion that things needn’t totally “normalize” for corporate profits to rebound dramatically. You don’t need a complete return to pre-pandemic psychology and modes of consumption for giant, multinationals (or even listed mid- and small-caps) to get back to something that looks like business as usual. They’ll be fine, on balance, as long as a vaccine and sane public policy together manage to turn an out-of-control pandemic into something more along the lines of an endemic disease that humanity learns to contain and treat, if not eradicate.
That’s what people are buying. That’s why folks poured the most money into global equities on record in the week following the US election and capturing the Pfizer news. That’s why US equity funds saw the second-largest weekly inflow in history over the same stretch. That’s why global equity ETFs took in $38.7 billion in the week through November 11.
Of course, it’s also true that investors were pleased with the prospect of divided government in the US, which ostensibly means no tax hikes and a Senate firewall against policies deemed unfriendly to business. But the market knew Georgia’s Senate races were going to runoffs by last weekend. So, it’s safe to say that the massive inflows into equities witnessed over the Wednesday-to-Wednesday period were motivated by a combination of optimism around a vaccine, and the promise of stability at 1600 Penn.
Still, Thursday’s equity selloff (and bond rally) was a reminder that the market isn’t enamored with lockdowns. And Joe Biden isn’t totally opposed to them. But visuals like the first chart above underscore one simple message: The current laissez-faire (non)strategy for containment is a disaster. And, as Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have emphasized time and again, it isn’t possible for the economy to normalize with infections running at the levels we’re seeing now.
Investors are apparently buying the idea that regime change and a vaccine will turn the situation around, leading to a better outlook for corporate profits. If that turns out to be correct, then the multiple you see in the second visual above is a Fata Morgana, of sorts.
“Even as companies beat third-quarter expectations at a record pace, analysts’ 2021 forecasts for S&P 500 earnings have increased only 1% since the end of September,” Bloomberg’s Wang and Ballentine went on to write, in the same piece mentioned here at the outset, before noting that if profits next year were to hit, say, $200 a share, the implied P/E is closer to 18, which would match the five-year average.
To be sure, $200 is optimistic for 2021 (see Goldman’s estimates below, for example), but that’s not really the point. The point, rather, is that barring a total failure for vaccine distribution and rollout, valuations probably aren’t as rich as they appear to be.
However, small businesses (that is, real small businesses, not listed small-caps) will need much more than a return to some semblance of normalcy to recover.
That’s the other side of the nuance I mentioned above.
On Friday night, I drove by the local barber shop here on the island. It was past 8:30 and the lights were still on. He was sitting in the chair looking down at his phone.
I suppose there are any number of reasons why he was still in the shop four hours after closing time, but my guess would be he was hoping against hope that someone (anyone) would stop in.
I’ve often conjured Edward Hopper’s work as eerily prescient when it comes to visualizing life in the pandemic. If ever there were a scene that could have walked right out of a Hopper painting, that was it: A barber, sitting in his own chair, the light from his empty shop casting a dull, amber glow on the empty street outside.
The math that can be deduced from the COVID charts points to some assuredly horrible COVID-related life and death outcomes for at least the next month. I think we all know the winter is going to be this way. We want not to be fatalistic, instead to have a somewhat sunny disposition on a future that can’t be predicted. And to think it’s not even Thanksgiving. We were warned.
Seems like there are going to be tactical-style lockdowns at the city, county, and state levels. We’ll wait and see what the messaging is.
I’m suspecting that if not enough citizens’ families are eye witnesses to the death and suffering, it’s going to be, say, a governor wants to close bars at 6PM for two weeks, it’s going to be “Lockdowns will destroy the economy.” Point is, unless enough people die and more families are stricken with grief, there is going to be a fight against most every measure that mayors and governors take.
In an alternate universe of a new Netflix series, members of the Red Senate would hold a joint press conference and cajole their constituents to exercise personal responsibility. But, and the argument can be made, these senators, and this applies to many of our elites, regardless of partisan affiliation, don’t exhibit that much thought for the care and well being of their constituents. Provided they retain power, what is their motivation to act on behalf of their constituents? A craven establishment of elites we have. Perhaps we deserve as much.
I guess if granny has a life insurance policy that pays out if she passes, well, who really cares, her time was going to come anyway…granny’s money in the meantime is just going into the pocket of that greedy long-term care facility.
To wit, I just saw a doctor on Fox News providing a bit of a vaccine reality check. He reminded us that the Pfizer vac requires TWO shots. He worried that because the shot is a little painful, many will not return for the second one.
He also reminded us that it requires such special handling that it is unlikely to be widely available at your doctor’s office or a convenient local pharmacy.
So plenty of reasons for the vaccine skeptics not to “bother” with it. I can hear it now, “If everyone else gets it that will protect me as well.”
Now, what sort of dip should I buy to go with those Fritos?
I believe J&J are coming out with a single shot vaccine.
I don’t know how old you are, H, but at 76 I probably qualify as the kind of cannon fodder my younger neighbors see me becoming. I sure don’t want to get full blown COVID as my choice way to go so for me no turkey day, no Christmas and no New Years (the one year anniversery of my wife’s passing). I’ve had bad Pneumonia five times and aucute respiratory anything is a horrible way to go. I hope my over-entitled “neighbors” don’t get a taste of that kind of end, but more than that, I hope they see fit not to give it to me.
Why does the resumption of hyperbole about the virus have so little impact on markets? Is it because there are other offsetting facts like over-the-top conviction in central banks? Or is it belief that the risk of a double-dip recession is low and despite lockdown threat the global economy has significant upward momentum? I don’t really know. As for the virus and the strategy is seems non-sensical with data that shows NPI are relatively ineffective what is the rationale for lockdowns unless of course there is a need to protect the ICU capacity at hospitals. None of this makes any sense to me,
Next week, I had planned to drive out to LA to visit my daughter- who works from home and is staying very isolated. I miss her terribly, but I am now reconsidering my plans, given the worsening covid situation.
A few thoughts:
I’m sure it’s complicated to model, but it is at least possible that pandemic deaths this winter will not be evenly distributed between Democratic voters and Republican voters. Similarly for long-term mortality (and morbidity), if Republican voters are much less likely to be vaccinated. The beauty of a 90% efficacious vaccine (if we indeed end up with one) is that it is strongly protective for the person who gets vaccinated.
I don’t believe there was a strong anti-vax lobby when a significant portion of the population saw their own children die or become paralyzed due to infectious disease. Seeing grandma die from COVID is bad, but there’s the argument that, well, she was old, and she was going to go anyway…. It’s a matter of luck that the current pandemic strikes the old and weak. The 1919 flu was most deadly for younger people with strong immune systems (cytokine storm). The next pandemic (and there will be another one at some point) might not have the profile of COVID-19.
The argument that a divided (dysfunctional) government is good for business is ridiculous and short-sighted. Is it good for business for the country to lose global stature? To devolve into civil war? Those are potential outcomes if our current dysfunctional state continues. Divided, dysfunctional government is like cancer. Markets are forward looking but are remarkably short sighted.
I keep looking at the seasonal flu infections chart by month. Late February is the peak of flu. This suggests an uphill battle with COVID until late winter. A bleak few months are still ahead.
Daily deaths will peak mid-January. April/May 2020 daily deaths were a steep climb and steep reduction. Now begins slow and steady up and slow and steady down. By Nov.30 we should have 264,000 dead first 8 months. By March 1 we may have 439,000 dead from an additional 3 month period and daily deaths will persist through March at levels not seen since May.
Medpagetoday
https://medpage.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/c7dafaae988f4c07a13a9ede90e43a47
Poetry in your last paragraph, H.