If investors are looking through a terrible Q2 earnings season and take the dividend futures curve at face value, what then are investors pricing? In our view, investors are pricing a new future which means stronger focus on fiscal impulse via monetization (“the magic money tree”), technology eating more of the world’s value, lower growth rates and lower yields for longer.
As we have talked about in recent research notes this creates an environment where large stable technology companies with high ROIC and predictable growth and free cash flow generation will be bid up in value to be bond proxies. This will accelerate equity market concentration to levels not seen since the 1970s with IBM in the lead.
All roads from here leads to inflation and one of the only asset classes that can protect investors is equities which have historically absorbed inflation well up to around 3.5% in inflation over a sustained period. As we have argued lately, the policy actions and the pricing of bonds leave investors with little choice than to race after equities, gold, real estate and other long duration assets.
