Guggenheim Expects Stocks to Crash 50% In The Next Recession
One could get whiplash listening to Guggenheim's Scott Minerd's rapidly changing opinions these days.
Back on May 29, the weightlifting CIO of the $265 billion asset manager, made a gloomy forecast on CNBC, predicting that the stock market sell-off is likely far from over, and said stocks would go "somewhere below the lows in December." Near term, he saw an "immediate move" down to around 2,730 on the before it drops further. Oh, and he also said the next move by the Fed will be a rate hike.
Oops.
Not even two months later, everything miraculously changed, and on July 15, again on CNBC, Minerd changed his tune by 180 degrees, and no longer seeing any crash, said that he now thinks the S&P 500 could rise 15% and approach 3,500 before the end of year, comparing the current market environment to a 1998 rally amid interest rate cuts.
“This rally — whether you’re looking at bonds, you’re looking at stocks, high yield, pick whatever you want — is all being driven by liquidity. And the central banks around the world have basically signaled that they are going to step on the accelerator,” Minerd said adding that the Fed has "kind of hit the panic button" and that "you’re going to see the money flow out of the central banks into bonds, which will free up capital and that will naturally find another place to migrate to and ultimately it will end up in the hands of stocks."
And so, Minerd now had all bases covered, with a soundbite to say he was right if stocks crashed, and another if they melted up by another 500 points. Actually, there was one base that needed covering: the same one that Trump has been pounding every single day, namely that if it all goes pear-shaped, it will be the Fed's fault (he is actually right about that), and today, Minerd - undaunted by his recent dismal track record in making public predictions - slammed the Fed saying that the Fed should hike interest rates, not cut them.
The consequences of the Fed’s actions in the next week - the U.S. central bank is expected to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point - could be with us for much longer than we think, culminating in the next recession and increasing the risk to financial stability.
In the meantime, the Fed could be delivering yet another sugar high to the economy that doesn’t address underlying structural problems created by powerful demographic forces that are constraining output and depressing prices.
Like we said, this time Minerd was correct, though we wonder: why does it take all these sophisticated financial professionals a decade to realize (or admit) what we have been saying since 2009. Must have something to do with vested year-end bonus options…
In any case, just in case everyone wasn't completely confused yet, today's Minerd released yet another research report in which he tried to predict not only when the next recession would hit ("we maintain our view that the recession could begin as early as the first half of 2020, but will be watching for signs that the dovish pivot by the Federal Reserve (Fed) could extend the cycle"), but also how severe it will be.
It is here that things get ugly, because as Guggenheim notes, credit markets "are likely to be hit harder than usual in the recession. This stems from the record high ratio of corporate debt to GDP and the likelihood of a massive fallen angel wave." With that in mind, the bank notes that "when recessions hit, the magnitude of the associated bear market in stocks is driven by how high valuations were in the preceding bull market." And given that valuations reached quite elevated levels in this cycle, Guggenheim expects "a severe bear market of 40–50 percent in the next recession."
Here are some additional details, starting with Guggenheim's framework for when the next recession will hit: here, the bank notes that its Recession Probability Model rose across all horizons in the first quarter of 2019, and while near-term the recession probability remains subdued, over the next 24 months recession probability more than doubled compared to the third quarter reading. The deterioration in leading indicators, further flattening of the yield curve, and tightening of monetary policy all contributed to rising recession risks through the first quarter. And since Guggenheim expects these trends to continue and growth to weaken in 2019, it expects recession risk to rise throughout the year.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-29/guggenheim-expects-stocks-crash-50-next-recession