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As we Chinese watch the elegant display of the western democratic process this election season, we can’t help but think there are indeed people less fortunate than us “commies.” Worse yet, some of these people are Value investors.

According to FactSet estimates, S&P 500 earnings for 2020 are anticipated to come in near $133 per share, a drop of 18% from 2019 results. Given the widespread business disruptions and closures caused by the pandemic, one might have expected this year’s results to be much weaker.

Read this week's Major Trend. 

Factor analysis is a point of emphasis in Leuthold’s tactical research activities, and this note summarizes our Factor Tilt outlook going into the fourth quarter. Factors are return drivers such as Value, Momentum, and Quality, and research has found that factor results vary over time—but that does not mean they are random.

Read this week's Major Trend. 

We examine a variety of industry groups with noteworthy relative price action on both “reopening” and “closed economy” days. Our objective is to shed more light on the industry groups that are consistently moving together on these days.

The big jump in Small Caps over the last two weeks has entirely reversed the segment’s summer underperformance and has technicians feverish about another “breath thrust.” Technically, it’s impressive, but we are more intrigued by the fundamental potential for continued Small Cap (and Mid Cap) outperformance.

Much of what we think “we know” about the bond market says yields should be headed higher.

Like many years, 2020 is one in which an investor who was armed with a perfect economic forecast would have been befuddled by stock market action. Who would have imagined that passive equity investors (including many posing as Wall Street strategists) would be so well-rewarded for ignoring the economic downturn?  

In the 24 months leading up to its early-September peak, the S&P 500 Technology sector gained 68%. By comparison, the two-year S&P 500 Technology gain going into its March-2000 peak was 203%. The S&P SmallCap 600 Technology Index doubled in the 23 months leading into the early-2000 top versus the two-year gain of just 6% at its 2020-summer peak.

It would be a mistake to ignore (as most pundits will) this important forecasting tool until the next time it threatens to invert. The level and direction of the yield curve provide helpful information throughout the entire economic cycle.

U.S. corporations piled on almost $1 trillion in debt over the first six months of the year (a 10% increase). Corporate debt has now surged to 56% of GDP. We’ve argued that the level of corporate debt isn’t the problem, in and of itself. Rather, it’s what this debt has failed to generate that is the real problem.

Mid and Small Cap stocks underperformed in 2018 and 2019. However, after the collapse of February and March, these “SMID” Caps have largely kept pace with the torrid rebound in the blue chips. Today’s valuations are priming the SMIDs for a similar “decoupling” in the years ahead, like that following Y2K.

AAPL (-10%), MSFT (-7%), AMZN (-9%), GOOG (-10%), and FB (-11%) all underperformed individually, and as a group, for only the second time in the last twelve months. Did these firms’ popularity hit a peak in that first week of September, or was it just a much needed breather?

Our Deep Cyclical Group gained 18%, besting Royal Blue Growth (+15%) for the first time in recent memory. Growth stock valuations are stretched to 1999 extremes. Value, while historically overvalued, is a relative steal.

Long before policymakers’ extreme response to the COVID collapse, we feared that the Fed’s interventions were suppressing important signals from the stock and bond markets. But we now suspect that hyper-expansionary policies are suppressing price signals from the “real” economy as well.

Using non-normalized trailing operating earnings, Small Caps are selling at a 24% valuation discount to Large Caps. Our Ratio of Ratios has now spent two full years below the 2% long-term-median premium for Small Caps.

The first up-leg of the bull market has catapulted many Large Cap valuations to levels seen only in 1999, 2000, 2019, and pre-pandemic 2020. At the six-month point on September 23rd, the S&P 500 P/E on 5-Yr. Normalized EPS had already reached 26.9x—a reading that is 30% higher than at the same point of any other bull market.

“Bull markets climb a wall of worry,” the old saying goes. We’ve heard that piece of wisdom (or imagined we heard it) every week since early summer. But we doubt it was meant to apply to today, when the paralyzing fear is not of potential loss, but of foregone upside (i.e., fear of missing out, or FOMO).

With Q2-2020 reporting now finished, our final Up/Down ratio reads 0.74. This is slightly better than Q1’s 0.71 reading (although both are historically abysmal).