The news of the final trading day of August, if it was news, decidedly didn’t seem particularly “new”. “Morgan Stanley analyst predicts S&P 500 could leap another 11% this year boosted by “Magnificent Seven” stocks”. So opined Fortune. “Apple Ends Historic Winning Streat. The i Phone 15 can’t come soon enough” from Barrons. And finally, from MarketWatch, “Alphabet Inc. Cl A stock outperforms market on strong trading day”. The hottest month of the year didn’t exactly warm up the financial markets but, perhaps anticipating autumn, it certainly did bathe them in a sea of red. S&P Dow Jones publishes a collection of sixty indices at the end of each month. Of the sixty fifty were red with the thirty covering the domestic stock market containing only three not of that hue. For the S&P 500 it might have been worse as the index was down 4.7% by the 17th prior to rallying 3.1% to finish down 1.6% for the month. The negativity was more pronounced everywhere else as small cap stocks slid 4.1%, midcap stocks 2.8%, foreign developed markets 3.7% and emerging markets 4.4%. Ten-year US Treasury rates starting the month at 3.97% hit a peak of 4.34% on the 21st finishing the month at 4.12%.
The most pronounced sound for those listening to the financial markets may have been that of the towels being tossed in by those market observers harboring opinions bordering the optimistic on the economy or the financial markets. The recession, though deferred, is most certainly coming. Inflation, though indisputably lower, may soon reverse course though that may not matter since Jay Powell seems determined to throw the rocks of higher interest rates until something breaks. The stock market is certainly overvalued, and US federal finances are in a state not too far distant from the catastrophic. Rather than seeking to speak truth to the market though, perhaps it might prove to be more profitable listening to what it is saying. Homebuilding stocks are up 20.6% in the past three months, more than twice the S&P 500’s 8.3%. The returns on those stocks most sensitive to the rate of economic growth are now outperforming those stocks least sensitive to it at a rate that is at ten-year highs. Finally, one of the best contrarian indicators has proven to be the rate of change at which investment strategists are lowering their price targets for the stock market. Century to date those levels have only been exceeded in 2003 and 2009, years AFTER major bear markets. What’s not to love?
Peter Thiel is famous for having said “you can invest in companies that deal in bits or you can invest in companies that deal in atoms.” This was his exhortation to invest in companies that are asset light and knowledge intensive (technology) rather than those that are asset heavy and make stuff composed of atoms (industrials). Certainly, those who took his advice when he spoke those words in 2014 have been well rewarded. In 1997 the services share of the economy was 80% larger than that of the industrial. Today it is 170%. Interestingly though, there are a collection of businesses that exist within the Industry sector of the stock market whose returns have nearly doubled at 260% the 131% return of the Information Technology sector in the past five years. Companies composing that industry such as WillScot Mobile, MYR Group, IES Holdings and Primoris Services are not exactly household names. The companies we are discussing are in the Construction & Engineering business.
Could it be that our economy is migrating to a new era in which the rewards are earned disproportionately by those companies which make rather than break things? A not small part of the story here is that the industrial part of our economy has now reached a size where even modest shifts in favor of the industrial part of our national economy represent very large changes in revenue and earnings for companies that are just not that large. WillScot Mobile (WSC) for instance had revenues in the second quarter of $582 million versus Apple’s $81.80 billion, with the latter company’s market capitalization of $2.93 trillion exceeding that of the former’s $8.092 billion, making Apple 362 times more valuable. Finally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment growth forecast for the period 2021 to 2031 is interesting with the five greatest expected growth rates being Support Activities for Mining, Electrical Equipment & Component Manufacturing, Power & Communication Lines & Related Structures, Utility System Construction and Building Construction.
As mentioned above, for investors August was a veritable sea of red but it might have been, and actually was intra month worse, as 60/40 equity/fixed income portfolios finished down for the month 2.6% but better by 2% than their levels on the 17th of the month. Only equity investors holding concentrated exposure to energy stocks saw green while everything else wasn’t. The equity share of portfolios, though down 2.6% for the month, is still showing handsome returns of +14.6% year to date. Fixed income though continues to lag as higher interest rates percolate their way throughout the yield curve creating negative returns of 2% for the month and -4.5% for the year leaving portfolios with returns of 7 ½% year to date.
Mark H. Tekamp/September 2, 2023
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