Last August the S&P’s bull market became the longest since World War II. Pundits have been predicting its end for some time now, but the economic backdrop suggests that there is no immediate reason to be bearish.
Strong wages are likely to keep fuelling consumption
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Ten years ago last week, global investors were terrified. "The fear generated by a tumbling stockmarket was given an extra twist after the S&P 500 hit the devil's low of 666," says Michael Mackenzie in the Financial Times. The benchmark US index had plummeted by 57% from its 2007 peak. But every crash has a bottom, and on 9 March 2009 it bounced off 666 and embarked on a bull run that has yet to end.
Investors who dared to buy at the bottom would have gained more than 300% with the S&P 500 by today, and more than 100% with the FTSE 100. Just ten stocks mostly tech giants such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft powered almost a quarter of the S&P 500's rise, David Kostin of Goldman Sachs told CNBC.
How much momentum is left?
But as Richard Henderson and Robin Wigglesworth note in the FT, the "thinning herd of diehard bulls believes these predictions are wrong". Instead, they say a sense of "career risk" (making a contrarian call when everyone else is pessimistic) has created "a grim kind of groupthink" among analysts and investors. "This is particularly acute for bulls, as being bearish and wrong is often seen as more acceptable than being bullish and wrong." Warren Buffett, for one, is not writing it off just yet. He told CNBC: "If I had a choice today for a ten-year purchase of a ten-year bond or buying the S&P 500 and holding it for ten years, I'd buy the S&P in a second."
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The economic backdrop suggests that there is no immediate reason to be bearish. America's economic expansion could become the longest on record in July. Growth has slowed, but still looks healthy. February's payrolls were "puzzlingly weak", as Irwin Stelzer points out inThe Sunday Times. But "my inclination is to believe what my eyes and ears are telling me". Businessmen around the country are complaining about a shortage of staff, skilled and unskilled.This presages continued strong wage growth (already at a ten-year high)and hence robust consumption, which accounts for 70% of US GDP.China should rebound now that stimulus has resumed, which should prove good news for European exporters.
Central banks are supportive
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Marina Gerner is an award-winning journalist and columnist who has written for the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist, The Guardian and Standpoint magazine in the UK; the New York Observer in the US; and die Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany.
Marina is also an adjunct professor at the NYU Stern School of Business at their London campus, and has a PhD from the London School of Economics.
Her first book, The Vagina Business, deals with the potential of “femtech” to transform women’s lives, and will be published by Icon Books in September 2024.
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