Adam Steinberg financial Research

adam
steinberg

Building intuition into the Macro Environment
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understanding the earnings discrepancy
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July/Aug 2009

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Introduction

Simply put: Where will the company earnings, buying power and credit come
from to support our ideas of normal in relation to index averages, asset prices
and GDP?

To build intuition into a look at the past two decades in the US economy, it’s
natural to want to understand

a) The conditions that appeared constant, abnormal, and/or correlated

(uniquely or otherwise) to the period in question (roughly 1993 to present day
2009).

b) The link between those conditions and the corresponding values for assets.

And, importantly, eventually to ask what factors in the study would serve as
determinants for the future.

Plainly, would the gradations between prosperity and despair be dependent or

independent of the factors that created them in the past.

If credit fueled growth and prosperity for a given era, would credit be needed
for the same level of prosperity in the future?

If consumer spending has fueled US GDP in the post WWII era, does that mean
it’s necessary in the future for the same levels of domestic prosperity? And could
said spending levels be possible without generous amounts of leverage offered
to the consumer?

Think of it this way

The growth of the U.S. economy in the last decade was fueled by consumer
spending (70% of GDP)—and enabled through the credit expanding
phenomenon that increasing demand for Home and Auto loans by individual
households, quantitative easing, and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act (Nov
12 ,1999) created.
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On the front end of the credit lifecycle was the extension of money to the
consumer; the life cycle tapered off with dispersion of those loans as securities
globally, and then finally through derivatives and multiple re-distributions as the
money flow multiplied to exponentially.

This cycle has been irrevocably altered across the socio-economic, as well as
macro-economic food chain—with the consumers attitude to home buying
irrevocably altered and an inevitable move to the upside in interest rates
pending, the overall participation rates will be lower than average.

This view is only compounded by the demand dampening occurring through

decreasing wages, currency values, and employment.

Most simply said, a demand slump in the desire for new homes—and the sheer
lack of mortgages to make up CDOs not only serves as a dampening factor in
asset prices and GDP but cool off (if not breaks) the consumer credit/spending
bubble that the new American prosperity hinged itself on.

As the recession/depression seeped into the real economy in 2008, spending

began to reflect reality.

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Previous to 2008, access to personal lines of credit enabled the consumer to
funnel trillions of dollars into industry via equity withdrawals.

Where did that money go?

To name a few: Home Depot, Starbucks, Las Vegas, Vacationing, Whole Foods,
The high end goods industry boomed with names like Pottery Barn and Apple.

As home equity withdrawals peaked between 04’ and 07’

So did the earnings of America’s ruling retail players. This could bring up a
conversation surrounding just how good business was at doing business in this
period. Pointedly, could anyone make money in this era just by virtue of showing
up?

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Consumer favorite Starbucks’ stock price peaked in unison with the equity
withdrawals.

Outspending Prosperity

As the amount of wealth in the economy started to peak in 05’ the national
savings rate turned negative.

The consumer had little discretion in discretionary spending, and obviously felt
compelled by aforementioned retail good providers to go into further debt.

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As a result, S&P 500 companies, for example, enjoyed relatively easy
profits with wasteful systems and un-necessary products.

The ERA of the free lunch was in effect, literally.

Google’s annual budget for employee meals was 72 million dollars for one
recent year.

With legions of MBAs on staff and the best resources at their disposal, it would be
intuitive to think that American business would be cognizant of the effect two
decades of extreme liquidity in the money supply would have on their earnings
and hedge accordingly through dynamic planning i.e. forecasting an eventual
pullback in spending.

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Alas, this wasn’t the case as legions of CEOs cited the “Macro” environment
catching them off guard vis-à-vis an exotic and villainous set of rogues from Wall
Street.

But one look at a free chart available on the FED’s website would have signaled
the era’s blatant abnormalities in the quantity of money available.

Without casting an aggregate of American business as incompetent, one could

wonder just what they were doing at work?

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The S&P 500 (above) also fell in lockstep with the peak in equity withdrawals and
the extreme wealth generation of monetary policy.

An earnings frenzy led the index to almost 1600, but with the liquidity and
leverage available, it had to go to new highs. There weren’t enough mattresses
to put the money in.

If we isolate the prosperity of the last decade to the result of

1. Monetary Policy
2. Asset inflation
3. Access to credit

We can see that gauging an assets’ future performance by the past’s “average”
would be foolish in the sense that the conditions that enabled those assets to
inflate to those data points are acting, or will be acting, in ways contradictory to
growth.

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The reality
A. Monetary policy will have to get tighter, eventually, which will constrict
enterprise and credit lines.

B. Asset valuations are deflating. And even if they stabilize, a “normal” year over
year appreciation seems unlikely.

C. Lines of credit are shrinking drastically, why would “normal” be “normal” (e.g.
El Erian’s new normal). What will replace those equity withdrawals?

Consumers have no credit and are less willing to spend, so how could a GDP
that was 70% driven by consumer spending be a viable model?

Consumer assets have no leveraging ability now.

The savings rate is surging, and even the bare necessities are harder to pay for
due to job losses.

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Analysts predicting a return to the mean on S&P earnings, are shortsightedly
missing the idea that prices are a function of demand and utility.

Loosely said, "normal" is a long way off.

The market can continue to misjudge the future and go higher in the short term,
without contradicting the state of decay the economy is in.

Obviously demand for borrowing and availability of liquidity are positively linked
and in order to have an environment flowing with this liquidity like the previous
two decades, a restart of the global market for Loans, MBS and other debt
instruments (fueled by a demand for housing) would have to occur.

Banking has not started funding business and the demand for money is
low, very low.

While TARP recapitalized loss provisions it did nothing to motivate lending.

What it did do is give large financial institutions more money to trade with.
As banks continue to fail on a regional level, the global “too big to fail” banks
are increasing their assets as the consolidation of money continues.

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While wall street priced in a robust recovery from March to Aug 09’, resulting in
earnings multiples of 16 and counting, they discounted the coming CRE and
prime loan defaults—and are no longer pricing any considerable risk into stocks
or US economy in general.

Underestimating the coming impact, overestimating the Governments

effectiveness in dealing with the coming issues, and assuming a return to
business as usual has lead equity prices too high and too fast.

That's one problem: but Wall Street priced these stocks from an
Inflation perspective, while all signs (in the shorter term) lead to a
deflation or stagflation environment.

As asset prices begin to reflect real earnings, top-line sales, and restricted credit
conditions, where will the market find optimism and upward pressure?

Does American business have any more rabbits in the hat?

After the lay-offs, cost cutting, and efficiency measures, will there be demand
for their products in the face of worsening macro data?

The question, simply, remains: Where will the money come from?

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 8/2/09 5:06 PM

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Adam Steinberg, Research 2009
Adamsteinberg1@gmail.com