Mike Wilson: Is this the End of the Bear Market?

As markets grapple with pricing in inflation, central bank rate hikes, and slowing growth, can the recent S&P 500 rally help investors gauge what may happen next for equities?

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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Monday, July 25th, at 11 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it. 

Since the June lows at 3650, the S&P 500 has been range trading between those lows and 3950. However, this past week, the S&P 500 peaked its head above the 50 day moving average, even touching 4000 for a few hours. While we aren't convinced this is anything but a bear market rally, it does beg the question is something going on here that could make this a more sustainable low and even the end to the bear market? 

First, from a fundamental standpoint, we are more convicted in our view that S&P 500 earnings estimates are too high, and they have at least 10% downside from the recent peak of $240/share. So far, that forecast has only dropped by 0.5%, making it difficult for us to agree with that view that the market has already priced it. Of course, we could also be wrong about the earnings risk and perhaps the current $238 is an accurate reflection of reality. 

However, with most of our leading indicators on growth rolling over, we continue to think this is not the case, and disappointing growth remains the more important variable to watch for stocks at this point, rather than inflation or the Fed's reaction to it. Having said that, we do agree with the narrative that inflation has likely peaked from a rate of change standpoint, with commodities as the best real time evidence of that claim. We think the equity market is smart enough to understand this too, and more importantly, that growth is quickly becoming a problem. Therefore, part of the recent rally may be the equity market looking forward to the Fed's eventual attempt to save the cycle from recession. With time running short on that front. 

And looking at past cycles, there's always a period between the Fed's last hike and the eventual recession. More importantly, this period has been a good time to be long equities. In short, the equity market always rallies when the Fed pauses tightening campaign prior to the oncoming recession. The point here is that if the market is starting to think the Fed's about to pause rate hikes after this week’s, this would provide the best fundamental rationale for why equity markets have rallied over the past few weeks despite the disappointing fundamental news and why it may signal a more durable low. 

The problem with this thinking, in our view, is  it's unlikely the Fed is going to pause early enough to save the cycle. While we appreciate that investors may be trying to leap ahead here to get in front of what could be a bullish signal for equity prices remain skeptical that the Fed can reverse the negative trends for demand that are already now well-established, some of which have nothing to do with monetary policy. Furthermore, the demand destructive nature of high inflation is presenting itself today will not easily disappear even if inflation declined sharply. This is because prices are already out of reach in areas of the economy that are critical for this cycle to extend in areas like housing and autos, food, gasoline and other necessities. Secondarily, high inflation provides a real constraint for the Fed to pause or pivot, even if they decided a risk of recession was imminent. That's the main difference versus more recent cycles and why we think it remains a good idea to stay defensively oriented in one's equity positioning until further earnings disappointments are factored into consensus estimates or equity prices. 

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