Displaying items by tag: recession

(New York)

Yes, the market had an unbelievable day yesterday. It was so good in fact, that it reminds one of all the things bad about the current situation—markets don’t rise 11% unless there is a huge crisis going on. At the time of writing, markets are pretty flat today, but tomorrow could be a doozy. US weekly jobless clams get released tomorrow morning and will be one of the first tangible signs of how the economy is trending under the coronavirus lockdown.

FINSUM: Many analysts are saying we might hit 30% unemployment, depending on how long this general virus lockdown lasts. Tomorrow could be the first sign of things to come and markets may react sharply.

(New York)

Many RIAs across the country are worried right now. With fee levels often tied to AUM, revenue seems likely to take a ~30% hit this year. That is enough to break many RIAs, especially those who were previously running only 10% profit margins. So how can RIAs cope? Firstly, those who have been very tight on budgets are in better shape. Those who were operating at 30% profit margins should be okay. A few of the key aspects to consider right now are: reaching out to vendors to “share the pain”, changing compensation structures towards lower fixed pay and more incentive-based pay, and switching to a quarterly budget, which will better align expenses and income.

FINSUM: We might go through a long period of lean times, so RIAs need to act fast to get their fixed costs under control.

(Washington)

The forecasts for growth have been reverberating through markets. When this whole crisis started, Goldman Sachs initially said there would be a 5% drop in GDP in the second quarter. Oh how delightful that sounds now. Things have escalated considerably since then. Here is a smattering of various Q2 GDP forecasts: Goldman Sachs at 24% decline, Morgan Stanley at 30%, and the St. Louis Fed at a whopping 50% decline.

FINSUM: We think it is safe to assume that the GDP decline in Q2 is going to massive. So much so that the actual figure matters much less than the pace at which the economy bounces back thereafter. Is it going to be a V-shaped recovery, or a U, or the dreaded “L-shaped” recovery?

(New York)

Wall Street made a grim prognostication today. The street reminded investors that so far the losses in equities have been modest compared to prior routs. The S&P 500 is down (before today) 32% since its peak. That compares to 57% during the Financial Crisis, and 49% in the Dotcom bubble. Goldman Sachs says the S&P 500 will see a 41% fall from peak to trough, while Bank of America thinks it will be 47%.

FINSUM: It is easy to imagine a couple more weeks of double digit losses before peak case-load hits and markets start to calm down. In our opinion, the rise and eventual decline in US cases will be the switch that turns markets on.

(New York)

This week has a very worst-case-scenario vibe to it, and thus we wanted to examine what the worst economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak might be. With a recession seemingly a foregone conclusion at this point, the question on economists’ minds is whether a depression could occur. A depression is an economic contraction that lasts for a long time, as in years, not a couple quarters. Since 1854, there has been 33 recessions and only one depression—by 1933 the US economy was only half the size that it was in 1929.

FINSUM: Many factors led to that huge downturn, and it takes a perfect storm for them to lead to a depression (e.g. the Fed raising interest rates at the same time as a huge drought in the Midwest). That multitude of factors does not seem to be in place right now.