Downside for Stocks, But Also for Fed Expectations

Retail Sales figures today were weak. Retail Sales ex-Auto and Gas (I usually just look ex-auto, but then they look really, really bad because of how far gasoline has moved) just recorded the two worst numbers (0.0% and 0.2%) in a year.

Retail sales are volatile, so one shouldn’t get too exercised by a couple of weak figures. Except for the fact that we also know that overseas sales are going to be suffering, thanks to the strength of the dollar. The disinflationary tendency imparted by a strengthening dollar is mild, and takes some time to be evident in the figures. However, the effect on overseas sales tends to be more rapid, and the effect on earnings more or less instantaneous (because earnings need to be translated back into the reporting currency).

So it isn’t just the weakness retail sales that should give an investor pause here. It is difficult to sell stocks in an environment of abundant liquidity, but perhaps this chart (Source: www.Yardeni.com) is one reason to do so.

I am not a fan of Yardeni’s analysis, as a general rule, but this is a great chart package showing the evolution of earnings estimates over time.

I understand that we have become conditioned to buy stocks on every dip, especially when the world’s central banks continue to supply boundless money to the system – an approach which, miraculously, seems to have no downside (leaving us to wonder how much better off the poor benighted peoples of last century would have been if central banks had only discovered this elixir earlier). And I am no bolder than the rest of you, so I won’t short stocks either.

But explain to me why the Fed is going to tighten? Headline inflation is low; core PCE inflation is low; even the measure that Dallas Fed President Fisher prefers (Trimmed-Mean PCE) is low. I have pointed out how the better measure, Median CPI, is actually near the post-crisis highs and is right around the Fed’s target, but if we are taking a vote then I lose. Market-based inflation expectations have recently rebounded, and will continue to do so, but remain very low. Growth appears to be weakening, although not yet alarmingly so. Finally, foreign central banks are all easing, which is one big reason the dollar has risen as it has. I have difficulty with the idea that with all of these arguments, the Federal Reserve is going to choose now to pull back on the reins, simply because they have sorta hinted about it previously.

Incidentally, any impact on growth from the strike over the coming long weekend at West Coast ports  won’t help the argument to ease. Nor will the ongoing strike at nine US oil refineries (the biggest strike of oil workers since 1980).  For all of these reasons, I don’t think the Fed is going to tighten any time soon. I do believe that US stocks are rich compared to European stocks for example, and rich on an absolute basis, but if I were going to play the short side because of the earnings estimates revisions, I would do so with options.