The Bubble Obituary The Fundamentals
- Many investor favorites in the late 1960s & early 1970s were companies such as IBM, Xerox, and Disney which enjoyed PEs of over 35 in the nifty fifty bubble. In this latest stock market bubble, there were dozens of mid & large cap companies trading at over 10x revenues. Many unprofitable businesses even garnered over 6x Price/Sales ratios at the peak in 2021! The US stock market is extremely overvalued relative to historical valuation averages. Conservative earnings expectations for 2023 would place earnings dropping 10%-20% this year, in-line with mild recessions. The problem with mild forecasts is that the current recession gives no indication that it will be mild. GAAP Earnings for Q4 2022, excluding energy, are down over 8% YoY with companies issuing even gloomier forecasts for 2023. Earnings are likely to fall at least 33% from peak to trough using an average of the last 4 US recessions.
- The subprime auto bubble is popping, with dealerships and lenders heavily exposed to subprime loans beginning to default. American Car Center, a subprime lender and auto dealer, recently closed its doors, highlighting the mounting pressures the industry faces. More defaults and business closures should be expected as interest rates stay high, vehicles fall in price, and car loan deliquinces rise. Subprime auto loan delinquencies are extremely high relative to their historical average even before unemployment has began rising precipitously.
- Layoffs have spread to every sector of the economy, as evidenced by 2022 Q4 conference calls. The decrease in consumer spending globally is leading to lower exports and imports globally. High interest rates are decreasing business activity and profit margins are falling due to inflation & weakening productivity. The business cycle has turned and every sector of the economy is entering cost-cutting mode. These are all reasons for layoffs continuing in increasing volumes throughout 2023.
- The US housing bubble is imploding. Sales volumes have declined over 35% from the peak. Mortgage purchase applications are the lowest they’ve been in over 25 years. Using data going back to 1952 from the University of Michigan, consumer sentiment surveys indicate that this is one of the worst times ever to buy a home. Home price declines are occurring nationwide. High office vacancy rates & high interest rates are leading to large bankruptcies in the commercial property market as well. This is already very acute in the mall segment of the commercial property sector.
- The FED has been raising interest rates within an economic contraction which has historically always magnified economic downturns. The FED typically tries to raise interest rates in the early - middle stages of economic expansion, pause their hikes as the economic cycle matures, and begin cutting rates when the economy begins declining. In this latest hiking cycle, the FED waited until the economy began contracting before quantitative tightening and interest rate hikes even began!
- America has one of the highest Private & Public Debt to GDP ratios in US History. The only other similar levels of debt in American History in the past hundred years were in the late 1920s & late 2000s. The economic contractions that followed were especially severe because of the high levels of malinvestment and debt which were deleveraged in those contractions. The level of malinvestment engendered by the FED’s suppression of interest rates in the 2009-2022 business cycle created one of the largest credit bubbles in history. Over 22% of the Russell 2000 are unprofitable and over 20% of the S&P500 are zombie companies. Many of the IPOs since 2017 (and especially since 2020) were/are unprofitable and are beginning to run into funding issues. This economic contraction is likely to eventually be classified as depression due to the continued declines in business activity and living standards for years.
The Technicals & Correlations
- Healthcare, Industrials, Consumer Staples, and Utilities have all underperformed since December 2022. Inflows and buying from large money seems to have mostly dried up and retail investor inflows, short covering, and call buying are making up a much larger portion of the market than is typical. This led to a bounce back rally in Financials, Technology, Real Estate, and consumer discretionary stocks which also began topping out in late January. In late February 2023, all sectors of the market have topped out, show falling underlying momentum, and are trading at very weak volumes. This is a similar pattern that played out prior to the march 2020 crash, where many Industrials, Staples, Healthcare, and Utility stocks peaked out prior to January 18th, 2020; whereas many overvalued & unprofitable stocks didn’t peak until February 21, 2020.
- Stock markets globally have peaked and are in the process of finishing their topping formations. Topping patterns began showing up as early as November / December 2022. Downside momentum is picking up now that interest rates globally are also beginning to breakout. The positive correlation between bonds and stocks has continued to remain strong since late 2021.
- Commodities peaked in the first half of 2022 as price inflation continued rising and economic activity was still high. Commodities enjoyed a large bounce in Fall 2022 as financial conditions eased due to the bear market rally in stock & bond prices. Commodities have been exceptionally weak thus far in 2023, which is another negative signal for stock markets & business activity globally.
- The bankruptcies of FTX & the Genesis lending desk, as well as increasing regulatory oversight, have continued to pressure crypto. With interest rates moving higher and the economy falling further, the speculative bubble that is crypto will collapse, likely back to being under 100B market cap for the total market with many altcoins going to zero and bitcoin dropping below 10K. Crypto has been a leading indicator for the market ever since their correlation began tightening in late 2020. The confirmed false breakouts and breakdowns all over the crypto sector are a negative forward signal for the stock market.
- Total margin debt outstanding is still at an extremely elevated level. In real terms, margin debts outstanding are at comparable levels prior to the October 2008 crash & March 2020 crash. Insider selling is at the highest point that it has been in the entire bear market.
The US dollar index’s negative correlation to the stock market was strong in 2021 but it became very pronounced in 2022. The US dollar’s rise against almost every other currency around the world since February 2nd is yet another negative leading signal to stocks.
-Alexander Lambert
I study over 30 countries’ markets and economic data releases. I also track the daily movements of over 750 companies and 15 different sector indexes. I have spent a tremendous amount of time on historical & economic research, as well as technical and fundamental analysis. I have been doing this for over 3 years and I generally spend between 65-80 hours a week on my work. Thank you for reading!
