Bulls to the fore in the S&P 500

published 19 September 2014

The bears "have gone into hibernation", say Alexandra Scaggs and Steven Russolillo in The Wall Street Journal. America's S&P 500 stock market index has hit a new record above 2,000.

The bull is based on "endless free money", as Randall Forsyth notes in Barron's all the world's major central banks have adopted zero-interest-rate policies, and this ample liquidity has allowed investors to ignore high US valuations, a weak global recovery, and ominous geopolitics.

Now, rather than worry about whether the market is due a breather, Wall Street is working on "a new rationale for optimism", says John Authers in the Financial Times.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

The bulls note that periods of rising rates have done equities no harm in the past ignoring the fact that this time the world economy is carrying an unprecedented level of debt. The bulls also point to a new note from Morgan Stanley arguing that the S&P could hit 3,000 in the next five years.

Morgan Stanley's point is that the global and US economic recoveries are likely to last for considerably longer than usual. The global economy "is out of sync, with countries in different stages of their cycle". So it is nowhere near overheating.

US households have cut debt as a share of disposable income from a peak of 135% to 108%, and consumer confidence has finally risen to levels seen in a normal recovery.

Companies have refinanced and cut their borrowing too, and so "remain far from" overstretched. Capital spending has only recently started to grow in earnest.

"As the prolonged expansion becomes more visible, we'd expect a materially higher US stock market" assuming that the recovery can avoid being derailed by a global crisis or a Washington-induced fiscal squeeze.

All the same, investors should be wary of rampant bullishness on Wall Street. When everyone agrees that stocks are going up, "it's dangerous", says Jim Cahn of the Wealth Enhancement Group."If they turn out to be wrong, everyone runs for the door at the same time."

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.