It is always dangerous to fight the Fed

It is always dangerous to fight the Fed and that is what we have been doing this year. World economic growth continues to disappoint despite the benefit of lower energy costs. Corporate earnings in most parts of the world have continued to fall and now the US is experiencing falling earnings. My thinking this year was that stock markets would follow earnings. What we did not expect was that markets would re-rate massively into an earnings downturn. Moreover, it still seems to be a re-rating which is not supported by hopes that earning will soon recover but only by the monetising undertaken by central banks. The quest for yield explains 100% of this year’s performance. Quite apart from the pain that this policy is bringing to pension funds, insurance companies and banks, it has ensured individuals have been buyers of dividend streams that are not underwritten by earnings streams. There is nothing sustainable about the current status quo. (VIEW LINK)